


Hear me calling out to you

by dragon_rider



Series: Hold on to me and never let me go [1]
Category: Dredd (2012), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Romance, Transporter Malfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_rider/pseuds/dragon_rider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, Jim is just an innocent patron in a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [graphic](http://johnreapergrimm.tumblr.com/post/58474751773/i-have-to-take-you-to-the-iso-cubes-yeah-i).
> 
> Fanmix: [in a world so cold](http://8tracks.com/allivegotleftismybones/in-a-world-so-cold).
> 
> ETA: I'm not a native speaker and I don't have any betas so I apologize for all the mistakes in this.

Jim is having a rough time. Thanks to the last transporter malfunction, he landed on an obscure world where happiness, justice and hope are all pipe dreams. He learned that the hard way as it's his custom, and he's been lucky to avoid the 'law' despite his several transgressions to it. He doubts any of the Judges of Mega-City One would understand why he's forced to behave like nothing but a criminal. He needs pieces to build some semblance of transporter pad and he has no identity here, let alone money to pay for the parts it requires.

He dreams of home every night he manages to catch a few hours of sleep, dreams of the Enterprise and almost can see himself back where he belongs; back on his ship, with his crew, trying to forget everything about an universe where Earth has no salvation, where nothing but the worst of humanity prevails and they fight against it only to have what little is left of good crushed under the weight of that huge responsibility. Nobody should ever be forced to become judge, jury and executioner all at once. He's met enough chick judges to understand that, although it took him almost half the time he's been here to truly get it, to stop fighting a war that is not his own.

The first time they meet, Jim is just an innocent patron in a bar. He stands aside with all the frustration he feels for the life in that place bottled up and does nothing. It leaves a heavy, sour taste on his tongue but it's what he needs to do and he knows it. There's no time or room for him to play the hero. He can't go back home if he's dead.

That's when he sees him. He'd recognize that face anywhere, even if it's just half of it. For a moment, he's blinded by relief and joy and the hope he thought he wasn't going to get anywhere here. He's giddy, stupid with it all and tries to approach the Judge he knows is Bones in this universe.

"Hey!" he shouts, and he's not quite sure whether he's smiling or about to burst into tears—probably a mixture of both. He wants to hug him so badly and the only thing stopping him is the firm belief that it isn't Bones, not really.

"It's you. I found you," he says, reverent and warm and so pointlessly hopeful it hits him like a punch in the gut when everything not-Bones says in return is a slightly annoyed but mostly emotionless, "Citizen, your presence is not required here. If we need to question you, you'll know. Leave now, don't come any further."

Jim is dumb enough to keep trying, of course he is, and it’s only the Lawgiver pointed at him what convinces him to let it go, to do as he was bid and go outside. He stands there idly, numb by pain that could come from several sources. Whether it’s the gaping hole left by the hope he should’ve known better than to feel, the rejection of a version of his best friend or the fact he just misses and needs Bones, the real one, so fucking much he wants nothing but to close his eyes and be by his side again. He wants to discover time hasn’t passed as it’s done for him or if it has, that it hasn’t rotten how much Bones cares for him. He wants, he needs to remembers Bones cares. They’ve been apart for so long Jim is only certain of one thing and that it the fleetingness of every good thing in life.

It’s been almost six months. What if he’s been away for too long, what if he goes back only for Bones to treat him just as detachedly as the Judge did? Jim would rather stay here and die where absolutely no one would mourn for him, he’d rather go through the most gruesome of deaths than have Bones back only to feel him slipping away from him as if they’d never meant a thing to each other.

The judge—Dredd, his badge says his name is Dredd—doesn’t even look at him when he’s back on the street. He rides his motorbike and speeds away swiftly because Jim doesn’t exist for him and it was his mistake to think he could change that.

He swallows, turns his head and forces himself to walk away without looking back.

The second time they meet, Jim is in trouble. Nothing major, just a bit of a step back into old habits—specifically, bar fights with several assholes at once so it can be at least a little bit challenging for him.

He hates himself for it, but he recognizes the hands on him the moment they collect him from the floor. He’s bleeding and concussed but he knows it’s Dredd; knows it because the shape of those hands is the right one but the feeling isn’t.

He entertains the idea of taunting Dredd, but refrains from it. He’s too tired and too close to ensemble the pad that will get him home to risk calling attention to himself so he just sits quietly as the Judge does his job and cleans Jim’s mess.

He comes back to deal with Jim once he’s done and the twist of his mouth is different, but Jim doesn’t allow himself to keep looking because he might get stupid again.

It’s only the two of them when Dredd speaks, voice hoarse and pitched low but familiar all the same. “I have to take you to the iso-cubes.”  
“Yeah, I know. A week for brawling, right? Plus, it’s your job. I figured you stayed for that and not because of my amazing looks,” he snorts at his own joke and spits some blood out.

Dredd asks him a few routine questions that Jim answers with ease. He’s hacked into enough databases to know all about the life of his alter-ego and it’s always funny to think about how it’s been mostly quiet considering the violent world he lives in.

He’s doing marvelously well, all things considered, until Dredd shows him the cuffs and says, “It’s your first time in there, isn’t it, kid?”  
Jim squashes the flutter of emotion in him and closes the fuck off. “It’s none of your business,” he hisses as he stands up, turns around and extends his wrists to the Judge.

Dredd handcuffs him and leads him to the exist. Jim decides to focus on berating himself for losing yet another week in an universe he should’ve never been in to begin with instead of noticing how slowly Dredd is moving and how he chooses not to toss him in the back of the van they use to transport convicts, picking him up and making him sit before closing the doors.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexander Wright is the name I made up for Jim's counterpart in this universe, so bear with me for a while until Dredd knows that's not actually his name.

In a world where everything is mostly black, it’s not hard to recognize white; to act accordingly to each without hesitation, without delay. What‘s hard is to come across grey and still know what to do without losing sight of the principles you’ve learned to honor.

Dredd lives solely for one purpose. Justice and serving justice are one and the same as long as it’s black and white. It’s easy, then. It’s liberating. He is the law and no one is above it. You either respect it or pay for your transgressions; sometimes with your life, sometimes with the mimicry of freedom mankind has these days.

Oh, because people are free. Free to get murdered, raped, robbed, abused and used, time and time again. Free to find an escape to all the shit that’s happening to them and around them by getting high, drunk, by being the victimizer and not the victim.

Mega-City One is too big for the Judges to do any real difference. Dredd and his colleagues do what they can—at least, the ones that are clean and haven’t sold themselves to some mafia just yet—but at the end of the day, they’re only men and women as the rest of them and they get tired, frustrated. They get hurt and killed, too, and most of the time it doesn’t seem like it’s worth it but there is no other choice.

In a world filled with corruption and wrong, he’s there to make it a bit right. And it has to count, even if it’s not enough. It always counts, because he saves lives and each and every one of them matters.

Well, unless they’re criminals. In that case, it’s all over and done for them, sooner or later. The city is better off without them and he never hesitates to pull the trigger when he must, when the sentence is execution.

But what is the definition of criminal? Sometimes he’s not so sure as he should be. What is a mistake? Is he supposed to be intransigent about all of them? Does he have to ask for perfection where there is nothing but the farthest thing from it? That’s bullshit, he knows it.

There is no law against making mistakes in general, just against a bunch of specific, unforgiving ones. The rest—the _greys_ —he likes to think are for his judgment to do as he deems best. Rules are meant to be followed, to be respected, but some scenarios have no rules that can be applied systematically.  People act driven by different things and he tries, when there’s time and need, to consider those reasons.

That’s how he decided to make Anderson a Judge. It’s a decision he hasn’t regretted, at least not yet. Granted, she’s slower than a regular Judge, but Dredd can’t ask her to be the cold-blooded killer they all need to be to finish lawbreakers quickly and on the spot. Her gift means she can’t do that; means that even though she has more to work with, she also has more to deal with. So Dredd allowed her slip.

They still see each other in the Grand Hall of Justice. She’s always kind. He’s civil. Sometimes she sits with him during meals and he lets her. The Chief Judge likes to rub in his face that they’re friends. Dredd knows why she does it; it’s odd, coming for him. He lives for his job, breathes and eats secondarily to it. He doesn’t need company or contact, doesn’t need much of anything as long as he’s out in the streets working.

Sometimes, however, he isn’t a Judge. Sometimes he’s just human. He wants more; wants someone to spend the night with, to pretend he’s got something more than a lost cause to fight for.

The feeling is stronger in times like this—when he’s out of uniform, on his way to catch some shuteye before something requires his attention. A Judge of his reputation is always on watch and it’s not a detail that bothers him by itself. He does wonder what it would be like to have someone waiting for him instead of an empty apartment, cold sheets and slightly foul food.

In nights like this, he walks to his place. He strolls and watches and trusts his gut to tell him if hell is about to break lose anywhere near him, the weight of his concealed Lawgiver a comfort in the dark.

His hackles don’t rise when a familiar, taunting voice comes from his right. “Fancy seeing you here, Dredd.”

He does tense at being recognized. It shouldn’t happen, but it’s that kid again. The one he sent to the iso-cubes a little over a month ago, the one who kept trying to get to him the first time they met as if it wasn’t, as if Dredd was somehow dear to him.

The relief and delight in that voice at seeing him, the pleading and hurt in those bright blue eyes—those are things he wishes he didn’t remember, but does.

He always remembers convicts by face, name and crime, but this is different. Blue-eyed blonde, Alexander Wright, brawler; those aren’t the details that come first to his mind.

 _It’s him_ , it’s all he thinks instead, and he’s furious with himself because he’s _interested_ and in the middle of one the grey areas he hates. Sure, Wright committed an offense, but should a few punches he threw at a bar dictate how Dredd sees him? Should that shout immoral, criminal, not-good-enough?

There was something broken in him, that time. He wasn’t the same guy he saw in the first bar, it seemed as if he’d lost something important along the way and hell if Dredd doesn’t want to find out what that was.

In a heartbeat, he chooses. “Wright,” he grunts back. He keeps walking trying to mask his interest.  
Something in his face must’ve given him away. The blonde smirks, steps into his personal space with ease that has Dredd raising a disbelieving eyebrow at him, “I knew you’d remember me. Care to help me scratching an itch?”

As pretty and alluring as he is, Dredd has to check. He pins him to the wall to their right, secures him there with an arm across the chest and tilts his head towards the one light of the alley with the other. It’s enough to see his pupils are receptive, shrinking to the stimuli. Wright isn’t drugged out of his mind, and his breath doesn’t reek of alcohol either; he can do this.

He kisses him firmly after licking the already wet, pink lips in front of his. The blonde gasps and seems frozen for a moment, but welcomes Dredd’s tongue in his mouth with keenness soon enough.

By the time air runs low for both of them, his hands have found their way to the small of Wright’s back and the blonde’s hands feel fitting, spread wide on his shoulder blades.

“Not what I had in mind,” he chuckles, kisses him quickly when Dredd tries to pull back, “It’s better, much better.”

Between kisses and low murmurs, Dredd gets he lives around the corner and wants him to come over. It’s such an easy offer it makes him angry, even though he has no right to judge—not on this—the kid for whoever he brings there and how often he does it. Once they get there he calms down, stops biting and pushing even though the blonde did nothing but give and pull as good as he was getting.

It’s a basement. They come in through a narrow window and Wright seems reluctant to turn on the lights, but he does it once he notices Dredd is staring. The place is clean, the only furniture in it is a racked table with a small stove and a kettle and some pots on it.

It’s not the mattress on the floor what catches his attention. It’s the walls completely filled with complex equations –or nonsensical ramblings, it’d make no difference to his untrained eyes— and the eerie machinery sitting in a corner of the room.

“Go on,” Wright says, defeated, pointing with his chin to the only window as he puts his hands in his pockets, “Door’s over there. It’s cool, I wouldn’t want to sleep with a crazy dude either.”

There should be some alarm flaring in Dredd’s head at this point, but there isn’t. There’s only a memory and his gut telling him to stick around, to open his eyes, to hear, to _feel_.

 _It’s you, I found you_.

“Some style you got, but you won’t hear me complaining about it,” he says, closing the distance between them, cajoling Wright’s hands out of his pockets and on him again. He erases the incredulous look on his face with his mouth, insistent, and walks him to the futon before any of them can change their minds.

***

Dredd bolts upright, sweat long since dry on his body. He’s warm despite of it and he takes a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm despite the fact he actually fell asleep, that he let his guard completely down in front of someone he barely knows.

He watches as Wright stirs something in a cup, his gaze lingering in his pale, slim legs, still remembering how good they felt around his hips, how good _he_ felt between his arms and under him; supple but firm, responsive and loud in all the ways he needed him to be.

He wants him to come back to bed, but his inner clock is telling him it’s around five a.m. and even if he hasn’t been called, he should get going to the precinct.

As if reading his thoughts, Wright hands him a mug with steaming coffee.  Dredd sips it curiously, used to the instant and crappy coffee they give him at his job. He’s expecting it to be worse, since there isn’t even a kitchen in here, but it’s surprisingly good, if a bit sweeter than he likes.

“Trust me, you want sugar in it,” he says conversationally, drinking from his own cup as he takes a seat in front of the odd mechanism in the room, “Black is only good if it’s, you know, actual decent coffee, which this isn’t.”  
“Thanks.”

He dresses quickly, watching from the corner of his eye as the blonde writes more gibberish on the floor since there’s no room on the walls anymore. He scowls, swallows the question in the tip of his tongue.

He knows that, at this point, this is a two-way street.

If he asks what he’s building, it means this wasn’t a one night stand. It means he cares or wants to care.

If he leaves now, he might as well not come back. Wright has been nothing but welcoming and he’s even giving him space to think.

When he climbs out the window and walks away, he still wants to ask.


	3. Chapter 3

Landing is harsh but Jim overlooks what is probably a badly sprained ankle and keeps on running, survival instincts in full gear as he dashes across tops of buildings and sets of stairs and alleys to get away from the place he just mugged.

It’s not exactly the first time he does it, but it’s the first he’s been almost caught. He’s getting sloppy, he knows it; he’s just so fucking tired of everything, of even _being_ here. He should be back on the Enterprise with his crew, his family, by now but he isn’t and that’s slowly but steadily tearing him apart.

Adrenaline carries him back to his hiding place. He retrieves the high tech battery he just stole from his jacket and delicately puts it on the ground next to the transporter pad he’s been building but still can’t manage to get to work properly.

It’s not a problem with the energy source, not really. Getting a new, better one and doing little improvements to it here and there gives him something to do though, it keeps him going and he can’t stop, not if he ever wants to go back home.

He rubs his eyes with a hand, his fingers sticky with blood he brushed from his temple after banging it against a wall. Again, sloppy, not exactly his best work but he got it done and he wasn’t caught.

He sags on the mattress, eyes unfocused as he looks at the ceiling. It’s been a little over eight months since he arrived to this world; since the last time he saw familiar faces, heard voices of people he cares about and that care about him.

He’s so tired he doesn’t even have the energy to curl up or get the quilt somewhat over him.

He closes his eyes and blacks out.

***

He’s quick in pointing the gun he keeps hidden in the back of his pants to the man who just came down through the window; a myriad of assembled aches awakening with him and making him grit his teeth as his thumb hovers over the trigger.

He lowers it two seconds later, blinking back confusion and puzzlement at seeing Dredd yet again in front of him.

The Judge raises an eyebrow at him, seems mildly impressed. “Nice reflexes,” he remarks, leaving his helmet on the ground and staring right at Jim.

In the list of mistakes he’s made throughout his life, sleeping with his best friend’s counterpart doesn’t rank high and it isn’t the worst he’s made either but it’s still twisted and fucked-up and Jim shouldn’t feel happy that the man has come back for seconds because he knows he doesn’t have it in him to deny him but he should.

Jesus, he _should_ but he _can’t_. He’s a fucking horny, needy idiot. How is he going to look Bones in the eye again? Dredd isn’t Bones, Jim is acutely aware of it at all times, but they still share a body and Jim is quite familiar with said body and about to get even more familiar perhaps licking his way down all over it. He wets his lips at the idea and smirks when he sees the Judge’s eyes following the movement of his tongue and how he ever-so-slightly leans closer to him.

He’s too lonely. Even if Dredd doesn’t call the right name while they fuck, or none whatsoever –all that Jim could get out of him the first time were grunts—it helps. Jim sees a mirrored desperation in him; a need to fulfill a void he has a hard time acknowledging and he’s not exactly talking about having sex. That’s instinctual. Sleeping and holding him close afterward—textbook cuddling, even if he doesn’t dare call it that way, not even in his head—is not.

“What the fuck did you do?” Dredd asks dryly, gesturing to the side of his head with a displeased curl on his lips, “You stole something, didn’t you?”  
“What?” Jim raises his chin, haughty and bold because he knows Dredd isn’t here to play cop and even if he is, he trusts he can distract him for long enough to get the hell away from him, “You gonna take me to the iso-cubes again? How long is it for stealing from the government? I guess it’s a lot, huh? Oh, well.”  
The corners of Dredd’s mouth get even lower as Jim puts a show and extends his wrists to him. “You can’t really want to go back there, kid. It’s designed to teach you a fucking lesson, not for you to like it.”  
“It wasn’t half as bad, you know. Maybe I loved it.”

Dredd rolls his eyes and Jim swallows past the nostalgia taking up his throat. He almost jumps out of his skin when the man kneels besides the futon and grips his chin to take a look at his wound.

“It’s just a scratch,” Jim mutters, breathless and hoarse for all the wrong reasons.

Of course Dredd notices his reaction is weird, frowns at him as he dabs his temple with gauze he pulled out of nowhere. Does he have a medkit concealed in his uniform? Jim shuts his eyes tight, tells himself his eyes sting because he hasn’t been sleeping much and not because he misses Bones so much he wants to scream.

Dredd isn’t Bones, but God, this is too close.

When he’s done, he inspects Jim’s body no doubt searching for more damage. Jim hasn’t taken out his boots, but his foot throbs and he squirms under the scrutiny. As much as he needs that be tended to, he’d rather limp than have Dredd’s hands on him in that way.

“Thought you were a soldier, not a doctor,” he croaks. He wants to laugh, but can’t. The quip hurts too much.  
“I’m no doctor,” Dredd states but he locates Jim’s injury with ease all the same and removes his boot to test the movement of the joint as he alternates between examining it and looking how Jim grimaces from the pain, “I take care of myself on the field. This isn’t different.”

He restraints Jim’s ankle with a tight bandage and it still throbs, but it’s better. Jim pushes air through his nose, half in relief and half to force himself to focus on the present, and collapses on the mattress.

“C’mere,” he beckons, kisses Dredd as soon as he’s close enough, craning his neck a little bit up to get a good angle as the Judge settles over him, “I thought I wasn’t gonna see you again.”

Dredd tenses at that and Jim curses himself for sounding so eager and happy when he feels the man breaking away from him because he just ruined it.

He’s back on him in about five seconds, after removing his jacket and his belt, leaving the Lawgiver within his reach as his hands effortlessly pick Jim up enough to do the same for him.

Jim beams against his lips, thrilled and so fucking grateful he’s trembling with it. He tugs at the short hairs on Dredd’s nape as the man nips at his neck, moaning as strong fingers grip his left hipbone and do a tugging of their own to grind against him.

They’re both more than a bit aroused from this little and Jim loves it; loves knowing he can affect the otherwise composed Judge this much, this quick.

He spreads his legs, secures his right one around Dredd’s hips as they pant more than kiss against each other’s mouths.

Jim breathes _Dredd_ like a prayer at the first groan he gets out of the man and they don’t even pretend they don’t want to get off as soon as possible, picking up pace as they slot just so into all the right places.

Apparently, three weeks was too long for much else the first round. Jim can’t complain.  It’s good, it’s hurried, it’s raw and Dredd is surprisingly mindful of his ankle the next time as he opens Jim up right; fucks into him with promise, as if he won’t ever let go of him, as if he won’t run away and leave this time.

Jim knows none of that is true, knows that even if it were, he can’t stay.

He holds onto him all the same.

***

Jim blinks and turns on the bed. He’s alone, but unsurprised.

He _is_ surprised when he sees a message on the floor just on the spot Dredd’s Lawgiver was a few hours ago.

It’s an address. There’s a ‘ _bring your laundry’_ scrawled under it too.

He grins.


	4. Chapter 4

He doesn’t stipulate a time in which Wright can come but the invitation is there and Dredd tells himself it’s practical; his apartment has comforts they don’t have in the dump the blonde lives in and a bathroom could come quite handy after things get messy just as they did the last time they were together.

He was expecting quite a few things when he stopped by for a visit—a punch in the jaw, a kick in the nuts, a string of insults—but Wright welcoming him back with such delight definitely wasn’t one of them.  It humbles him, because he realizes he’s not only wanted but needed.

The kid keeps surprising him. He’s injured but doesn’t show it, knows showing weakness in this city is the equivalent of a death wish; doesn’t even limp when he walks despite his ankle is far from healed and it won’t be anywhere near healed unless he stops whatever it is he’s doing during the day because the nights? The nights are theirs and Dredd makes it his mission not to let him abuse his foot any further.

He’s suspicious at first, thinks the blonde is probably so high on painkillers he doesn’t even remember he has feet anymore. He doesn’t catch him popping pills in his mouth though; can’t find any in his pockets either and there are no puncture wounds anywhere on his body, of that he’s more than sure.

“Would it kill you to have some booze in here?” Wright complains, right after they’ve stumbled on Dredd’s queen-sized bed and made good use of it. He’s panting but still sullen even as he rests on his chest, his breath cooling the perspiration on Dredd’s neck, “Seriously, man, I get it; you’re a Judge, you have to be an example, a role model, whatever. But you can’t be a saint. What do you do when you just want out?”  
“You,” Dredd retorts. It earns him a deep, breathy laugh as the blonde straddles his hips, looks down at him with bright blue eyes full with dirty promise.

As much as he loves the position, he swiftly rearranges them so Wright is lying on his back. He kisses him intently, swallowing the protest for as long as he can.

But today the blonde is obstinate and whiny and it’s not long enough.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” he wriggles under him, puffing in frustration as Dredd simply stares at him unmoved. Wright is quite strong for his complexion and has the stamina of a horse, but he still isn’t stronger than Dredd and he keeps him easily in place, “You know you want me to ride you, why are we even wasting time pretending you don’t again?”  
His treacherous body agrees with him and Wright is about to make another attempt but he stops him, worrying his earlobe with his teeth. “Later,” he murmurs, “Not tonight.”

The tacit reassurance of another time appeases him and Dredd tries not to ponder on the relief he feels for too long.

He wishes he was softer around the edges. He has a feeling that’s what the man he’s holding really needs and he can’t shake it off.

Unfortunately, he’s not.

***

The kid is extremely perceptive and he can’t help but be more impressed each day that passes as he still comes back to him, never mind sometimes Dredd only bristles and tenses at realizing he’s got a visit when all he wants is to keep throwing punches until he meets the required ‘down time’ to be able to go back to the field and maybe get something done there, something that isn’t just killing but also saving. Bringing justice to a bunch of corpses might look good on reports, but the aftertaste doesn’t agree with Dredd much.

Wright takes one look at him and knows it. He almost reaches out to him before leaving each time but catches himself, fingers barely grazing the air around Dredd’s form, something bereft on his face that makes something twists in the middle of Dredd’s chest as he quietly utters a, “See ya,” and is out of the door before Dredd can think about it twice.

One of these nights, when anger isn’t blinding him, he might meet him in the middle.

***

It’s been twenty days since they started meeting in his apartment when Dredd wakes up and realizes he’s not alone.

He takes a shower, decides to give time for Wright to gather his bearings and go.

The blonde is still in his kitchen when he’s done. It’s only the growling of Dredd’s stomach what alerts him of his presence behind him.

“Hey,” he greets, nervous and bashful as he’s never seen him before, “So you’re hungry, that’s—that’s good, I—huh—I made waffles,” Dredd just stares, breathing in the essence of food his place hasn’t had in years with a thoughtful but not displeased quirk on his mouth, “Sorry, I was hungry. I’ll get out of your hair now.”

Dredd is more of the eggs-and-bacon sort of guy, but he bites one of the waffles and his eyebrows shoot to his hairline.

He has no idea how Wright managed to make something good. He barely has any food because he’s not long enough in here to bother, only cleans the room whenever insomnia gets the better of him and he can’t go back to work. So his kitchen is spotless, but also rather empty.

“Don’t be stupid, kid,” he says. The blonde starts a little at the harshness in his tone, but he tries to amend it somehow, “You wash your clothes here. You can cook, no need to be sorry.”

He gets a grateful kiss and a sunny smile in return.

 _He’s a thief,_ a vicious voice in his head reminds him, stopping the corners of his lips from curling up _, a lawbreaker. He will betray you._

Against his better judgment, he ignores it.

***

There’s a note when he comes home that night. _I need to show you something. Come to my place tonight._

It’s not even signed, but it doesn’t need to be. There aren’t many people with access to where he –sort of—lives. He knows who it was.

When he crawls through the window, the lights are out but the machine that’s always been in the corner of the room is shining and humming, almost alive with energy. It’s obvious he’s about to find out what it does and he’s not particularly curious. Not even remotely, to be precise.

The blue hue it casts around is the same as Wright’s eyes and it annoys him. He wants it shut off and forgotten. It’s a gut reaction and he has a hard time squashing it down.

“I know you never asked. But,” the blonde speaks quietly, gesturing him to get closer, “it’s important. I want you to know about this.”  
“What?” Dredd asks curtly, “That you’re a mad genius? I got that bit the minute Control didn’t send me to haul your ass to Justice. They don’t even know who you are, you’re clean.”

He doesn’t say he’s glad about it but he is, in a way. He doesn’t know—he does but won’t admit it, not until he has to actually make that call—if he’d be able to detach himself enough to imprison Wright for what would most likely be the rest of his life. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Wright shakes his head, furrows his brow. “Just—Just take a look at this, okay? I’ll explain after you’ve seen it.”

The blonde procures an apple from the table and Dredd has half a mind to tell him to eat it and cut it out, but stays put and watches instead.

After he leaves it on top of the device and punches a few buttons on the panel under it, there’s no longer an apple with them. It disappears, enveloped in glowing yellow light, and doesn’t come back.

“So,” Wright scratches the back of his neck and staggers all the way to the ragged mattress in the center of the basement, “That was me transporting that apple to another universe. Dimension, if you will. Huh, you better sit down for this. Dredd?”

Dredd takes a minute to will himself to get the fuck out. This kid is insane, mentally unstable, he has to be and he needs to stay the hell away from him. That’s it. What he just saw was nothing. A fluke at best. He needs to go. Now.

He doesn’t.

“Right,” he flexes his hands on his knees as he sits beside Wright and fixes an unimpressed glare at the instrument, “And you know that how?”  
“Because I built it and that’s what I programmed it to do. Because,” he pauses, waits until Dredd has turned to look at him to add almost inaudibly, “That’s where I come from,” then louder, firmly, “My name is James Tiberius Kirk. I’m the Captain of the USS Enterprise and the Earth I’ve always known? It’s nothing like this one.”

It’s an odd tale of an utopian future he will never know; of space and stars, of destruction and rebuilding, of losing and gaining. Dredd has been trained to search and find schizophrenic traits in people’s talking, to recognize impaired judgments that could make an individual a danger to themselves and others and he picks Wright’s—no, _Kirk_ ’s—speech apart but there isn’t a trace of psychosis in it.

He has no choice but to believe him. He can, however, get mad at him for lying and misleading him for as long as they’ve known each other.

All this time, it’s never been about him. He’s never been anything but a hint, a mockery of the universe Kirk misses so dearly.

It’s degrading, but he can barely breathe around the knowledge that all those emotions—the joy, the relief, the downright _care_ —never belonged to him, were never for him.

He’s been fooled, played with but that’s not what upsets him the most. No.

Whether he likes to admit it or not, he came to care about Wr—Kirk, whoever he is. And this hurts. It feels like betrayal, even if his own stupidity allowed it to happen in the first place. He wasn’t thinking, plain and simple, and he should have. If Kirk were allied with any of the big fishes of the organized crime in the city, Dredd could be— _would_ be—dead by now.

There’s nothing else to say, so he stands up, makes his way to the window. He won’t look back, not if he can help it.

“Hey, wait a minute, wait,” Kirk grips his arm, his other hand skimming over his chest up to his shoulder, making him turn around. He looks worried, and Dredd sets his jaw against the pang of longing he feels.

Kirk has never been his to touch. He’s McCoy’s— _Bones_ ’, as Kirk called him fondly over and over again—and he refuses to be second best, to be anyone’s replacement, to be nothing but a temporary fix of the real thing Kirk currently can’t get.

“Dredd, I get you’re angry, okay? And I get it’s a lot to process, but please, you have to believe me,” Kirk’s fingers tighten on him. He clenches his fists, doesn’t—won’t—touch him, “You can’t honestly tell me you think I made this up.”  
“I don’t,” he spits out, failing to extricate himself from the blonde’s prying hands by stepping back, “Don’t come looking for me again, _Kirk_. We’re done.”  
Kirk looks stricken now, but instead of letting go he only holds Dredd tighter. “What?” he asks, thunderstruck, “Why?”  
“You really going to play dumb with me, kid?”  
“I’m not! Jesus, Dredd, would it kill you to say more than a sentence for once? I don’t know what’s going on in your head, you’ll have to clue me in if you want more explanations,” he’s still just as good at reading him, though, because when Dredd doesn’t move, doesn’t even look at him, Kirk adds, urgent, “Please, don’t do this. Talk to me.”

The pleading is the breaking point. He forces the blonde off him; pushes him with all his strength, his control slipping until he gets what he wants and the contact ends.

He’s too angry to feel any regret at seeing Kirk lying on the floor, an arm curled behind his back as he hisses in pain and hunches forward after colliding with the edge of the table.

He’s about to head out when the blonde chuckles, low and menacing. Instinct has him turning back and he watches as Kirk picks himself up with a grunt, a matching threatening sneer on his lips as he speaks. “You think I used you, don’t you?”  
Think? No, he knows it. “I’m not asking if you did.”  
“Really?” There’s a pregnant pause as Kirk looks at him. When he doesn’t see whatever he was hoping to find, the scorn changes to wrath. “You’re accusing _me_ of using _you_? That’s fucking rich. I don’t even know your first name, Dredd! You know why that is? Because you haven’t told me, you haven’t told me anything about you and you don’t care as long as I put out, do you? You shut me out every time you’re just not in the mood.  I wouldn’t even know you’re a Judge if I hadn’t seen you in your stupid uniform! We’ve been sleeping together for almost two months and I don’t know a thing about you! So excuse me if I wanted things to change, if I wanted you to know who I am! If I cared enough to want you to—you know what, this isn’t worth it. I’m just talking to a brick wall. It was nice meeting you, I sure as hell hope I was a good lay. Now get the fuck out of here.”

He realizes Kirk is right, but he doesn’t falter, doesn’t apologize. He turns his back on him, climbs out and goes away.

McCoy can soothe the aches he’s caused. Kirk won’t stop trying to go back to him, after all. It’s only a matter of time.

Dredd won’t compete with a man who’s virtually a ghost.


	5. Chapter 5

_War protocol successfully terminated. Opening of the outside hull at 86%._

Jim sags in relief over the console in front of him, eyes never leaving the monitor showing the level Dredd is currently in. The Judge is injured but standing up after sewing himself back up on the spot and Jim tells himself his job is done, that what he needs to do now is getting out of the top level in one piece.

When he hears the door, his hand flies to grip his gun and he shots, no questions asked.

It’s still too late.

Even as the man is falling to the ground, there’s no time for him to dodge the bullet.

**A week ago**

Jim has had his fair share of broken ribs in his life, so he knows what exactly the aftermath of his last encounter with Dredd is. He knows he should, at the very least, get some kind of tight bandage around them and lie down for a couple of days.

He doesn’t. Breathing is painful, but he doesn’t focus on that. Walking has also been painful for a while now. Physical pain is something he has no trouble dealing with.

It’s the other kind of pain what’s making him grit his teeth as he hobbles to the transporter pad, sits down and hugs his legs to his chest so he’s able to fit all his body on it in that position. He built it in a size that’s barely enough to contain a standing person and this is pushing it, but he can’t stand the sight of the bed right now, let alone lying down on it.

The steel table in the other corner of the room is mocking him, too, reminding him of just how much he screwed things up with Dredd. He wishes it hadn’t been there in the first place. Being thrown against the wall wouldn’t have hurt so much.

He knows he should’ve let him go, give him time to think about what Jim had revealed to him. He stuck to him like a limpet instead, a revolted feeling in the pit of his stomach at just the thought of the man walking out on him to never come back, after he realized the likes of someone like Jim—liar, robber, stowaway in his universe—weren’t worth the effort. What for? Jim is trying his damnedest to come back to where he belongs, after all, and that isn’t—no matter how much Jim feels like it is, almost _wants_ it to be—Dredd’s side.

It’s been so long since he got here. He wonders who the new Captain of his ship is; if Spock has taken his place permanently or is still refusing to drop the ‘Acting’ part of the title, if he’s still waiting for Jim to return, along with the rest of his crew.

He wonders if Bones misses him or if all this time apart has just helped him to see how much of a nuisance Jim has always been; if he’s breathing easier without him. If not being forced to keep his reckless ass alive is a weight off his shoulders or if he’s living his absence like he’s short an arm, just like Jim has been feeling his.

He turns the transporter off. Wasting the battery in the vain hope he’s dematerialized while he tries to sleep is not something he wants to add to his problems. He has enough of those as it is.

He can’t help but hoping Dredd comes back soon, if he’s ever going to. Now that the instinctual anger of being tossed away like an overused toy has melted away, he’s all too aware he didn’t say what he needed to; didn’t get to explain he doesn’t feel what he does for him because he looks like Bones—hell, things would be easier if Dredd didn’t, but life takes great pleasure in torturing Jim and he can’t say he’s surprised things are the way they are—but because of who Dredd is. He might be made of sharp edges and bitterness but that doesn’t ruin him, not to Jim.

He knows his feelings for Bones showed all the way through his story but he can’t be sorry about being honest. Keeping that to himself would’ve been lying and if later on Dredd found out exactly what Jim hadn’t mentioned about his counterpart—well, then Jim couldn’t blame him for feeling used.

If he weren’t every bit as hurt, he’d show up at Dredd’s apartment in a heartbeat.

The possibility of being pushed away again is still too great for him to handle. If Dredd doesn’t come to him, if he’s not willing to listen to what Jim has to say, then it’s over and he’s right. They’re done. _We’re done._

Rejection has practically been a constant throughout his life. After almost ten months of disappointment, Jim wants to save himself the extra pain.

He wants to be selfish, but knows he won’t be able to maintain that attitude for long, even when he feels like everything he told Dredd is true in some way. He won’t give up on him, not while he’s still here.

He won’t leave this horrible place without saying goodbye, without kissing him one last time.

**Five days ago**

Moving into a Megablock is in all likelihood a stupid-ass decision, but Jim is tired.

He’s tired of messing up, tired of failing, tired of waiting. He hasn’t been able to figure out what’s wrong with the transporter—except, oh, he _does_ know but it’s not something he can fix; it’ll take years to even come any close to develop a way of sending a message to his ship and instruct them to position his body at the right time and coordinates for him to be able to beam himself back to it—and he knows deep down, no matter what the optimistic side of him keeps yelling, that Dredd won’t come back for him.

In the level 180 of this block the stars are somewhat visible over the lights of the city. Here, perched on the windowsill with legs falling over the edge, he feels closer to home than he ever did in the ruins of the building he was hiding in.

He’ll take that comfort over safety any day now.

**30 hours ago**

There’s shooting and screaming in the levels below his. It takes all his willpower not to get involved and stop it, but he knows gang fights are the quickest way of getting killed in here and whichever he inadvertently helps today has enemies that will chew him up and spit him back out as soon as they get the chance and he can’t die here, not like this.

He breathes deeply—fuck, he’d almost forgotten about his broken ribs, that _stings_ —and occupies his place on top of the pad he turns on and off every day even though he knows it’s useless, even though he knows he can’t leave, not like this.

Supporting his chin on his knees, he eyes the rest of the empty and shitty apartment before closing his eyes and reviewing the Enterprise’s blueprint a hundred times in his head.

He vows to himself he’ll go out and look for Dredd as soon as things are quiet again.

**2 hours ago**

“ _Attention citizens of Gates. This is Judge Manners. The quarrel between the gangs known as the Bulls and the Eagles has lasted long enough and we are ending it now. Step aside and you won’t be harmed. Step in our way and you’ll be executed._ ”

Jim falls off the transporter with a cry and stays where he is until his vision has cleared. He was asleep for long enough to get contractures in essentially all his muscles, but he’s awake now and there’s a sickening feeling rolling in his gut telling him to get up and do something _now_ , before it’s too late.

He’s not familiar with the Judge who just used the speakers, but he knows two things—okay, okay, _one_ , but he trusts his gut and he could be right on the second one.

1) There are at least two Judges in the block.  
2) One of them is Dredd.

The pressing need of moving only gets worse once it all goes dark for a minute and the outer defenses of the structure slam shut, effectively trapping everyone inside until the lock down is over, including—and most importantly—the Judges.

Whether this is a trap set by any of the gangs or something even worse—Jim has witnessed Judges accepting bribes, knows most of them aren’t like Dredd; devoted to their duty instead of themselves—he won’t leave it to luck.

He might be useless at combat right now, but there’s something else he can do and he will do it.

He’s cheated death in worse situations than this. He only needs to be careful.

He takes the stairs to the upper level, two at a time.

**37 minutes ago**

He eventually needs to replace his gun after running out of ammo, but he makes it to the main computers room.

The door doesn’t lock from the inside and he’s exposed the whole time he frantically types every reroute code he knows, spewing up more than a dozen of new ones as he goes.

The war protocol is the toughest thing he’s ever tried to override and it takes him longer than he would’ve liked, but he gets it done.

He patches through Dredd’s message to Control, hoping the backup arrives soon even though it looks like he won’t need it.

You never know in a place like this.

**Now**

“Dredd!”

Anderson sprints towards him as he keeps kicking Manners.

There are few things that can rival with his hate against corrupted Judges and he wants him to spit his own smashed guts before killing him.

He wants him to taste the shit he’s made of before blowing his head beyond recognition.

He deems himself satisfied when the dickhead pukes something that looks more black than red. With one last kick to the jaw, he points his Lawgiver directly between his eyes and pulls the trigger.

That’s when Anderson catches up with him. “Are you okay?” she asks, surveying the carnage around them with worried eyes.  
“Fine,” Dredd replies briskly, “You took your sweet time in getting here.”  
“We couldn’t get in with the war protocol activated and it hasn’t been long since we knew what was happening,” she explains. Of course he knows that. What he said is more of a statement than an accusation. “Someone turned it off from the inside and resent your message. We assumed it was you.”  
“I didn’t do it. I was busy.” It’s an understatement, but still an accurate description of being attacked by around a hundred people for two hours and somehow managing to get out alive with nowhere to run and a sold-out Judge on his heels. “I’ll look into it. Stay and count the bodies for Resyk.”  
“There are more Judges on their way. I’ll leave that to them,” she smirks and falls into step with him as they get on the lift. “You didn’t hear the order, but Control instructed us to pair up until we’ve cleared the block.”

Dredd scowls, his mouth twisting down as he has no choice but to acquiesce to her company.

Once they’re on level 200, it seems they went up there for nothing; a trail of corpses spreading from one hall to the other and the next.

Anderson stands still for an instant. He supposes she’s reaching out with her mind to look for any sign of life on this floor.

“There’s someone—he was the one who let us in. He’s—”  
“Where, Anderson?” he urges, doesn’t like her gasp one bit. He’s got a bad feeling about this.  
“Last room to the left. Dredd—he’s calling for you.”

A familiar, hurt face flashes through his mind.

 _No_ , he couldn’t, not after the way they parted, not after the way Dredd treated him, _he’s okay. He’s safe. He’s not here._

He sees the vacant basement he visited three days ago, Kirk and his device long gone.

His blood runs cold.

They start running.


	6. Chapter 6

“There,” Anderson says. Dredd kicks a body out of the way and charges into the room, eyes quick in scanning it to find what he wants and what he’s dreading to find at the same time.

And there he is. Kirk’s right there on the floor next to the chair he was most likely occupying while saving Dredd’s ass—and isn’t that a great realization to have after maintaining Kirk cared only for the man Dredd isn’t and giving him no benefit of the doubt, essentially throwing him out of his life—a hand still applying pressure to the wound in his right side that has created a pool of blood under him. He’s curled up, trembling and pale, eyes closed and mouth open to breathe shallowly and jaggedly.

He’s in shock. Dredd isn’t a doctor, but it’s obvious. It might be too late to save him, but hell if he’s not going to try.

He opens his emergency kit with a growl, kneeling beside Kirk to inspect the injury. It’s ridiculously easy to move his hand, gripping his wrist, to get it out of the way. As he halts the bleeding by burning the damaged vessels in the wound, he tries not to ponder on the fact Kirk doesn’t have a pulse on his limbs anymore and that the one on his neck is dim, fleeting, threatening to stop any second now.

The bite of the electrocoagulator is barely enough to make him blink. Glassy blue eyes try to focus on him. They make it for at least enough to recognize him. “Dredd.”

This is the man he thought was with him for convenience. He’s here, on the brink of death, and he’s still showing the same—if weaker this time—joy he always did at seeing him.

It’s worse than a blow. It punches the air out of his lungs just as efficiently.

“Joseph,” he blurts out, “My name is Joseph.”

Kirk smiles faintly, eyelids dropping as Dredd finishes what little he can do up here to keep him alive.

He gathers the blonde up in his arms and rushes to the elevator with Anderson covering him; her Lawgiver steady and at the ready, a grave expression on her face.

If this were any other kind of situation, he’d probably feel proud of her but it isn’t. He can only nod at her after she’s pushed the button for the bottom level and try to wake Kirk up again.

He has no idea what to call him. He wishes things had turned out differently. This can’t be the end of them, of _him_.

What was Kirk thinking? Risking his life for a man he met in a condemned world he was never supposed to be in? What for? He’s supposed to go away, to leave him behind; he’s not supposed to give his fucking life away for something that was never meant to be.

“James,” he settles with, his tone commanding, _demanding_ him to listen. Even if they just have the next couple of minutes, Dredd is going to call him by his first name. Maybe he’ll get to hear the same thing coming out of those lips he knows so well, if only once before he’s gone. He’s been a fool. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

He wants him to talk, to tell him what a jackass he’s been, wants to hear him laugh and look up at him from where he is; fitting perfectly against his chest, head cradled in the crook of his neck. But nothing happens and it’s maddening.

He’s losing him. James isn’t even his to lose and he’s losing him.

Anderson shakes her head, touches his shoulder firmly to get his attention.

He doesn’t want to hear what she’s going to say. Her eyes are welling up with tears. He doesn’t need to be a mind-reader to guess her next words.

“Let him touch you,” she pleads, doesn’t wait for him to give his consent to remove the helmet from his head. She takes one of James’ hands and guides it to Dredd’s face, outlines the creases on his forehead and his eyebrows with the tip of those familiar fingers that are so cold right now, “He can’t hear you, but he can feel you. Let him hold onto you.”

Dredd swallows hard. He just holds James tighter, kisses the clammy skin of his temple as the lift seems to take forever—time they don’t have, time _James_ doesn’t have—to get them down.

Finally on the ground, Anderson runs in front of him to the nearest ambulance and gives a brief status report to the paramedics that jump and take the blonde out of his arms.

He’s not breathing anymore. His heart isn’t beating either. He’s in cardiopulmonary arrest. Two of them start the reanimation process while a third one tries to find a vein to pump fluids into without much luck. Dredd clenches his jaw when they resort to pierce bone to get the vial operational and James doesn’t even react, limp and completely still as they work to try to get him back.

Dredd scarcely registers the Chief Judge standing next to him until she speaks. “Who is he?”  
“My partner,” he replies, unflinching. Even if he only has it for a little while longer, he’s going to give the right name to what they have; he’s going to call James what he’s been ever since the first time they kissed.  
His boss nods, doesn’t ask for any explanations as she approaches one of the paramedics and orders, “Treat this man as one of our own. Take him to our facilities and do everything you can to save him. Let me know about his condition.”  
“Yes, ma’am. Do we have a pulse?”  
“Yes, sir.”  
“Let’s get going.”

They pack their equipment, wheel the gurney into the car, close the doors and speed away. He stares, following it with his eyes, until there is nothing left to see.

Anderson hands him his helmet. Dredd puts it back on.

He’s on duty. He won’t panic about something that hasn’t happened yet. He’ll keep his composure until he goes to the hospital and if by then it’s all over—if James died because of him, if he died apart from everyone he ever knew because he chose saving Dredd over going back—he knows what he’s going to do.

He’ll keep going.

One day, he will die too. And when that happens, he’ll stop thinking of him.

He’ll stop grieving over him then, not a moment sooner.

They follow the Chief Judge as she walks to where their vehicles are parked.

“We really need a contingency plan for these scenarios.”  
“Yeah,” he snorts. That’s a mild way of putting it. Second time they’ve tried to take him out using the same method.  
“I need you to fill some reports back in the Grand Hall,” he nods. He knows what’s required of him. “We’ll make it quick. Then you’ll be off-duty until further notice.”

He knows it’s a kindness on her part, something born out of her respect for him.

The ‘thank you’ gets stuck in his throat anyway.

***

Critical condition. If James wakes up in the next few days, he’s probably going to be okay. If he doesn’t…

Dredd is capable of several deeds but waiting sits ill with him. He paces the hall outside James’ room, pauses for 30 seconds tops to look at him through the window and then resumes his steps. Rinse and repeat and he’s been here for an entire day already.

He tried being inside with him at first; taking his hand in his and touching him, trying to coax him into consciousness with gentle fingers caressing his serene, sleeping face. When that didn’t work, he bolted.

He’s not made for sitting still but moving without any purpose isn’t much better. He needs something to do while the clock ticks and there’s no update in James’ state.

He attempts to seem less desperate when he hears steps coming his way. It’s Anderson who arrives and sits next to him. He figures he shouldn’t bother pretending with a psychic but he feels exposed enough without his uniform. If she’s here to get him to talk about his _feelings_ , she’s going to have more luck trying to stop the radioactive storms in the desserts that surround Mega-City One than making him confess he’s anything close to upset.

“Was he living in Gates?” she asks, handing him a cup of coffee.  
It’s lukewarm and awful but he drinks it. Coffee has tasted poor ever since James made some for him. It makes no difference except it’ll keep him awake longer. “I don’t know. Probably.”  
“If he did, you should go to his place and see what you can save from it,” she gives him a pointed look when Dredd glowers, “It won’t do him any good if you go slowly insane here. I know you don’t want to leave his side, but you need to, for a little while. I’ll stay here and call you if anything happens.”

Grudgingly, he stands up, tosses the cup in the trash. She’s got a point and he’s not talking about his peace of mind. She has no way of knowing James actually possesses something that can’t be replaced and he needs to get it fast, but he should be relieved she reminded him.

He doesn’t want James to leave but he will do the right thing and give him that option.

He only hopes he wakes up to make the call.

***

It takes him hours to get to the right level and another one to find the right apartment. Apparently when the kid doesn’t want to be found, he isn’t kidding.

After packing the few clothes James owns, he picks the machine up –notices it’s heavy as fuck and wonders how did he even manage to carry it out of the basement in the first place—and takes it to his house, where he’s going to force James to stay until he recovers if he has to.

He puts it on a corner of the living room and swears when the thing suddenly turns on and starts making a shrilling noise he’d never heard coming out of it before.

He’s about to risk breaking it by pressing a few buttons when the noise subsides and a voice interrupts him. “ _—tain? Captain, this is the Enterprise, can you hear us?_ ”

Cursing again, he realizes that’s the other side asking for their Captain just when he isn’t around to answer—when he _can’t_ answer.

Dredd clears his throat, exhales deeply and punches a flickering light on the panel. “He isn’t here but yes, I can hear you just fine.”  
“ _This is Acting Captain Spock of the USS Enterprise. To whom am I speaking?_ ”  
“I’m Judge Dredd,” he says, “If you’re looking for James Kirk, you’re late.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past Kirk/Uhura (if you squint, because it isn't them, not really). Also background Spock/Uhura.
> 
> Leena is the name I made up for Uhura's counterpart in Dredd's universe.

_“I’m Judge Dredd. If you’re looking for James Kirk, you’re late.”_

An ominous silent falls on the bridge. Bones doesn’t look around, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t dare believe the worst scenario those words could carry.

He grips the Captain’s chair –Spock is sitting there, but the chair is still every bit as Jim’s as it’s always been and it brings him one of the few comforts he’s been able to find ever since they lost him—and leans forward, speaking directly to the console on its side.

“What do you mean _you’re late_?” he barks, “Where the hell is he? Where’s _Jim_?”  
“Did he say Judge? He did,” Wright splutters, occupying Spock’s right, “Oh, shit. Your Captain’s in trouble.”

When a whole minutes passes and there’s still no answer, he sees Spock exchanging a look with Uhura and his stomach churns painfully. The first rush of excitement and hope he felt when she announced she’d found a stable frequency and that it had to be the Captain is turning into horror.

They’re in orbit around Earth and it’s the cruelest déjà vu.

Jim can’t die, not like this, away from them, not after they brought him back to life.

He can’t die away from him again.

“ _He’s not in that kind of trouble_ ,” the voice replies at length. It’s still firm and clear, but there’s a milder edge to it that wasn’t there before. And it sounds oddly familiar, but Bones can’t pinpoint why. His mind is a one-way track right now and that track is Jim. “ _He was shot. I can’t bring this device to where he is now. Even if I could, it’d make no difference. James is in a comma._ ”

He breathes again, almost heaves where he’s standing. A comma is better than death, definitely, and he will take it as good news even if it doesn’t feel like such.

“What is his prognosis?” Spock inquires.  
“ _I’m not a doctor,_ ” Dredd says. That’s when it hits him. It’s his voice—his own voice, from the other end of whatever veil that’s separating their universes—and if Jim were here, boy, he’d be cracking up. But he isn’t and that’s the problem. “ _It’s reserved. That’s what I know._ ”  
“Can you give me some kind of description about where you’re keeping him and his condition? Where did he receive the shot? When did it happen? Is he breathing on his own, is he hooked up to a respirator, a pacemaker? Is he on an induced comma?”

Those are a lot of questions, Bones is aware of it and he’s not hoping to get much out of the guy. He tried using terms at least two centuries old. He’s aware Medicine isn’t a priority over there and he can’t expect anything better for Jim, no matter how much he’d like to.

He remembers the brief description Alexander Wright—Jim’s counterpart from there, who’s been their unwilling guest for 10 days and seems to have a knack for politics instead of command. It’s another detail Jim would find hilarious; the fact Bones is a cop, of all things, and that he’s an aspiring revolutionist leader that’s all about planning and waiting and nothing about leaping without looking.

Bones isn’t quite sure he likes that even if it means Wright is not even half as suicidal as Jim is.

 _“Yesterday. Right side, near the liver,_ ” damn it. The bullet or its fragments may have gone through the inferior cava vein or worse, the abdominal aorta. A variety of treatments he can do flash into his mind, but he’s still listening. “ _He lost a lot of blood, hasn’t woken up since. He’s in the ICU, connected to everything you can think of. I’m not sure about the pacemaker._ ”  
“Alright,” Bones says, “hold on a second.”

Uhura is quick in muting the communication even without him telling her to and Spock stares at him for a whole second before lifting a hand to stop him which he promptly ignores.

“No, you listen to me. I’m pretty sure with that kind of wound Jim went into cardiac arrest at least once. The chances of him making it out of that with the archaic joke they call Medicine is around 1%,” he’s praying Spock will listen to him if he talks in his language, “If we want him back, and _I_ do, I need to go there and treat him. There’s no other choice.”  
The Vulcan doesn’t even waver. “The risk is too great. I can’t allow you to do that, Doctor, regardless of the necessity of it,” he’s about to start shouting at him, chain of command be damned, when Spock stands up and levels with him, “I can assure you I am neither abandoning the Captain or doing something he wouldn’t do. You have to understand the transporter pad that would be awaiting you was built anew by him. We have to assume it’s unstable and, as Humans would say, made of scraps. It will not hold for more than one use, of that I have little doubt.”  
“So what?” he retorts, “Once I heal Jim, he can build another one. You can’t tell me you’d rather leave him to his luck when there’s something we can do, Spock!”  
“The benefits of your travel and treatment are hypothetical, Doctor. The Captain’s injuries, on the other hand, are quite real. The Enterprise can’t lose both of you. You are staying on the ship and we will wait for his return, given he sufficiently recovers for it.”

There are moments in which he can’t stand the sight of Spock.

This is one of those moments.

After one last glare, he storms out of the bridge.

***

“McCoy,” Wright calls him, barely hovering outside his office in Medbay.

Bones stops pinching the bridge of his nose and looks up. It bites, it always does, because he’s not Jim but he should be.

He misses every lost aspect of his closeness with Jim. He’s never been sorrier for complaining about that stupid moniker— _Bones._ He’s probably been using it in his own head for years and it’s only its absence what’s made him realize how much it means; how much Jim always said with just one little word.

It’s been a hard lesson to learn. He misses the constant reminder he’s Jim’s best friend; that Jim strives to be special to him and won’t let Bones give him the same attention everyone else gets, that Jim is claiming a right every time he renames him because Leonard McCoy is someone everyone knows and can count with, but Bones? Bones is his and no one else’s. Bones is something Jim created and means to keep.

“Wright,” he acknowledges, takes a deep breath so as not to miss so acutely something that isn’t there. There’s not an ounce of the warmth and playfulness he’s used to seeing in those bright, unmistakable eyes. Why would there be any? He doesn’t know who Bones _is_ and he has Jim’s beautiful baby blues but he isn’t _Jim_. “What can I do for you?”  
“Actually,” he says, flops on one of the spare chairs in front of his desk without being told to. In that, he’s like Jim. The nostalgia brings a sour taste to his mouth, “I came over to tell you Dredd promised to call as soon as there’s any news and that could be soon because for Kirk it’s been like, months. And it’s only been days for us, so maybe you don’t have to wait for so long to know if… if he’s…”

He’s not ready to even hear that possibility yet. He’ll probably never be.

“I understand,” he cuts in, “Thank you,” when the younger man seems to be going nowhere, he adds, “Is there anything else?”  
“Well, I was going to have dinner with Nyota,” _of course you were_ , God knows they’ve both been inseparable ever since he appeared on board, “But I’m sure she wants to be with Spock today so, are you hungry?”

This is a stupid idea. They’ve never been alone together. They’ve talked and Bones has heard everything about the twisted world he comes from—and he’s feeling guilty enough about wanting to send him back there as it is, but he wants, _needs_ Jim back and if throwing someone back into a pit is what it takes then that’s what they’re going to do—and his company does nothing except give him more heartache.

He can’t believe he let all this time pass, keeping his goddamned mouth shut and his feelings in check, only because he didn’t want Jim to think he owed Bones anything after all the time he’s spent –willingly, and even happily whenever the kid isn’t getting them into another mess—by his side and agreed to be with him in a new way for the wrong reasons; because Jim doesn’t want to disappoint him, doesn’t want to be tossed aside so Bones can get what he wants somewhere else, because Jim doesn’t want to _lose_ him.

Jim already lost a big chunk of himself when Pike died. Bones knows he can’t take another blow like that and make it. No matter how strong he is, he wouldn’t be the same man.

But maybe he’s been overly protective of him for nothing. Maybe Jim loves him back. That’s what all the little things that are missing now keep telling him.

“Sure,” he can’t be rude to him. If it pains him to accept, well, that’s his own problem.  
“Great,” Wright smiles at him and turns to leave, waiting for him to catch up.

Bones pretends that pretty smile isn’t lacking a world of meaning, that it’s truly for him –it really isn’t and it’s pretty alright but nothing else—and meets him by the door.

They take the turbolift to the Mess and he’s already regretting it.

***

They both tiptoe around the issue –Bones wishes Jim weren’t an issue right now, but he is and the senior crew is so scared of him biting their heads off for not having his back while he argued with Spock that they won’t come anywhere near the table—but by the time they’re both done eating, Wright appears to have something too important to swallow.

“I know you said you weren’t together,” he starts. Bones huffs. There’s that tone again, as if he’s been lying through his teeth about not being in a relationship with Jim, “And I don’t know if I believe you, but whatever it is you guys have, I want that. I want—“ he drops his voice, slumps slightly onto the table, “anything remotely similar to that. The way you look at me—at _him_ , I mean, it’s—it’s something. I wonder what I need to do to deserve that too.”  
That has Bones raising a disbelieving eyebrow. With all the fuss he’s been making over Uhura, he was willing to bet they were practically married in his reality. “What about Leena?”  
“It was never like that between us,” he replies wistfully, “And she’s dead.”  
Bones practically gapes at him. “What?”

There hadn’t been even a smidgen of grief in what he’s seen of his interactions with Uhura. Ever since Wright arrived to the ship, he’s been looking at her like she’s the only thing that makes sense in the universe.

Uhura was the one who soothed him and explained what had happened to him when he first arrived to the ship. She’s the one Wright has been expending most of his time with too.

And maybe Bones has been the only one bitter and jealous about it—hell if he understands the way Spock’s emotions work, nor does he want to—but a normal person would’ve showed sadness at some point if they were mourning someone they held dear.

“She’s dead,” Wright scoffs, “You’re surprised, aren’t you? Meeting Nyota has been a gift, but she’s nothing like her and I’m glad she isn’t. I mean, she has these little things that make her familiar but she’s sane. Leena was dangerous. I might be a terrorist in the strict sense of the word, but she was the very definition of one and nothing I ever said convinced her of changing tactics. I told her a direct attach to the government would solve nothing, but she didn’t listen. I told her she was going to die for nothing but she didn’t listen. Eventually, Justice found her. A Judge executed her when she was 23, a year after we broke up. That was 5 years ago.”  
“I’m sorry.” God, he is. If Wright is anything like Jim, then he’s constructed a façade thick as a starship’s hull to pretend he doesn’t care. But if he does, he’s got no one who knows how to look right through it. That upsets him. “Were you—“  
“Happy together? For a while, yeah. But I wasn’t as daring as she wanted me to be. From what I’ve heard of your boyfriend—sorry, your ‘best friend’—she would’ve been head over heels for him. She wasn’t what I needed either, but—“ Wright pauses, blinks enough times to let Bones know that yes, it’s a façade and yes, he still misses her, “I loved her. I’d never hated being right more than I did the day she died.”

Bones knows he’s going to hate himself for what he’s going to ask. He intuits the answer.

He does it anyway. He needs to know.

“Do you have anyone waiting for you?”  
“I like thinking I have my students,” Wright teaches kids not to resort to violence, keeps them busy with stories, music and science. He spends his free time mingling with criminals, learning their motivations and trying to discourage them. He believes the change his society needs must come from within and not by force, either from the law or the outlaws, and he knows the process will take years, decades, but there’s no other right path for him. Bones has to admit, he’s noble. “But I don’t know. It’s been too long. They must think I’m dead. I’m going to think someone replaced me and continued my work though, because that’s what I’ve training them for.”

Bones nods. Yeah, that’s a no.

He doesn’t realize they’ve probably been talking for a long while until he spots Uhura coming to collect Wright.

She smiles warmly at both of them but her hands grip Wright’s shoulders and linger there, firm and comforting.

Bones wishes them goodnight and takes his leave, ignores the sharp twinge of jealousy he feels because it makes no sense. This isn’t Jim.

He’ll go drown his misery with Scotty down in Engineering. He feels like they can half-celebrate finding Jim.

He’s not dead, not yet, and Bones will have to trust him to come back to him on his own. 


	8. Chapter 8

_I've got nowhere else to go, the ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I've got left is my bones._

_I couldn’t just leave you there looking all pathetic._

_Don’t be so melodramatic. You were barely dead._

He’s choking. Deft hands are swift in removing whatever it was from his throat—a tube? That’s a first. Just where the hell did he end up this time? What kind of crappy hospital is this?

More importantly, where is Bones?

He coughs until someone shoves some ice chips in his mouth. Jim tries to spit them out because they’re too cold and he’s hurting everywhere but whoever it is doesn’t let him; makes sure he’s swallowing around the ice and keeps talking to another person in—English maybe? Jim can barely keep his eyes open, understanding what they’re saying is too much effort.

The only thing keeping him awake is the panic.

Did Bones leave him? Why is he not with him? Why is he letting other people treat him? He knows Jim hates doctors, hates people touching him unless he initiates the contact.

Did Jim make him so mad he doesn’t want anything to do with him? Shit. Jim must’ve died again or something. There are glimpses of darkness in his head but it’s all too fuzzy, he can’t remember what he did, what was happening. He’s sure he had a good reason to—to—well. Whatever it was that he did.

Bones has to give him a chance to explain, right? He wouldn’t just walk away from him, would he? He’s different. Jim can trust him. He wouldn’t do that to him.

Why is his chest hurting like he hasn’t seen him in forever then? Why can’t he remember the last time he did? Why is his mind filled with flashbacks but no recent memories of him?

_Where’s Bones?_

“Mr. Wright, I need you to focus on me for a second, okay?” his new doctor is female and a very cute brunette as well but Jim just wants her to leave him alone, “Can you tell me your name and age? Do you know where you are, which day it is?”

It’s not until his eyes accidentally reach the glass wall in one of the sides of the room that he remembers.

There hasn’t been any Bones in his life for almost a year. For over half of it, he’s been on his own; driving himself crazy trying to go back home.

Then he met the man he almost died protecting, the man who’s the vivid image of his best friend—who is also the person Jim’s in love with, has been in love with for years—but that shares little else with him.

If Jim had to define Bones using just one word, he’d say compassionate and he wouldn’t think twice (and if he had to give a one-sentence description of him he’d say Bones is the best man you could ever know). Dredd would be tougher to condense, either in a word or a sentence. Using ruthless would be—kind of accurate, really, but Jim knows it’d be a partial truth, that he’s only coldhearted to the ones who deserve it.

Jim wouldn’t know what to say. Righteous? That sounds too detached after all they’ve shared.

 _Joseph. My name is Joseph._ He’s there, right outside, looking so unbelievably glad he might as well be smiling even if that particular quirk of lips couldn’t be qualified as such in another face. He’s in uniform but his helmet is off and it seems he rushed here from wherever he was. Jim almost can’t believe what he’s seeing, but he smiles for him through the glass and swallows around the stupid ice chips so he can get this over with and they can let Dredd in.

His name is James Tiberius Kirk. He’s stuck in the wrong universe and this isn’t his doctor—although he isn’t sure he still has one.

Is Bones still waiting for him? How long has it been? How long was he sleeping this time?

Despite of everything, he has to admit things aren’t looking so bad for him here. He’s gonna focus on that for now. A flutter of affection makes him smile wider as he gazes at Dredd.

Of course, he doesn’t tell any of that to the woman still waiting for his reply.

“Very well, Mr. Wright,” the doctor seems satisfied once he answers everything correctly, “I’ll come back to do a complete neurological exam on you later, when you have more strength. I’ll leave you to your visits.”

Great. She’ll come back to run tests on him. Terrific, really.

He’s _fine_ , he doesn’t need any exams to state that. He knows his own head. So he was a bit disoriented at first but he’s not anymore and he wants to get out of here.

Maybe he can convince Dredd of kidnapping him? Or fake-arresting him, that’ll do too.

The Judge is ushered inside and closes the door, leaving his helmet on the first available surface he finds in the room. His hands are free to grasp Jim then and he breathes in relief at feeling his calloused, big fingers on him. He wants to touch him too, but can only squint at him and lean the slightest bit into the contact.

It’s not until he feels Dredd’s stubble scratching his skin that he realizes he’s helping Jim to mirror the gesture on his face, keeping a hand cupping his cheek as he does the same with Jim’s hand.

Jim knows he’s saying sorry, that he keeps saying it—hell, shouting it, really. This soft side of him is something Jim has never seen before—as he kisses Jim’s palm and keeps his gaze down.

“Wasn’t your fault,” Jim croaks. Perhaps it would’ve been more convincing if he hadn’t started coughing like mad again.  
This time he opens his mouth to receive the ice Dredd is offering. “Quiet,” he orders. Jim tries to suck one of his fingers into his mouth in retaliation and fails miserably. He only gets to lick one a bit and swallows too quickly because he has so much to say to him. He ends up coughing again. “I will tell them to sedate you if you don’t stop straining yourself, James. You were out for ten days. You need to take it easy.”

Hearing that name from his lips is new and welcomed. The perspective of being out again at the mercy of strangers, not so much.

He tries to communicate with his eyes just how much he hates hospitals and needs to get out of there. Joseph—or Joe? Jim has never been one for formal names and he likes the sound of that. Yeah, definitely Joe from now on—frowns and feeds him more ice, gently caressing his lips to keep them closed as he waits for Jim to finish them.

Once his throat doesn’t feel like it’ll close on him the next second, the words die in it.

He knows he’ll fall asleep with no help at all in just a couple of minutes and that Joe won’t let him leave the hospital until he’s discharged, either because he worries too much for him or because he’s just a sucker for rules. It makes no matter. Jim is stuck here until he’s healed and he’s healing at a ridiculous slow rate, so he’ll probably be stuck here for longer than he’d like.

And Jim is stuck _here_ , in this horrible post-apocalyptic world, possibly forever.

If he focuses on the man beside him it doesn’t seem half as horrible though.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, grins when the Judge stares at him, dumbfounded.

Joe complies soon enough, presses chapped but warm lips chastely against Jim’s.

He sighs and is dead to the world the next second.

***

During the course of the next few days—when he isn’t ‘busy’ sleeping, of all things—Jim learns that saying ‘I’ll be good if you give me a kiss’ can indeed get him kisses and he doesn’t get tired of asking for them.

Joe isn’t the slightest bit self-conscious about it. He looks daggers at whoever dares looking at him funny and doesn’t blush when Anderson just beams at them and teases him.

“If the Chief Judge sees you, she’ll want to hire Kirk for Intelligence,” she says today, lightly.  
“I do need a job, you know,” Jim says, chuckling.

The mirth dies when Joe lets go of him as if Jim’s just burned him. He grimaces when his head hits the pillow in the wrong angle and follows Joe’s movements with a worried look as he leaves the room, cursing under his breath.

“What did I do?” Jim asks, sulking, “He’s not really expecting me to sit on my ass all day while he fights crime, right?” Anderson purses her lips as if she’s refraining from saying something Jim won’t like hearing. “Hey, I’m not dumb, okay? I could pick up the phone at Control or something. That’s safe, isn’t it?”  
“You two were so at ease with each other that I thought you had talked things through,” she admits, “If you mean to stay for real, Kirk, you need to tell him. He needs to know.”

Jim snorts. Some Psychic she is. Jim had trouble talking with him when he wasn’t sleeping three quarters of the day away. Of course they haven’t _talked._

“I’ll go now,” she squeezes his hand before standing up, fixes him with a pleading look, “Please, talk to him.”  
“Yeah,” he gulps. He’s been trying to avoid making a conscious, final decision. Guess he can’t have that luxury anymore. “Yeah, I will. Thanks for coming.”

Joe is edgy and won’t come anywhere near the bed when he comes back, keeps pacing the room and avoids looking at him.

Jim gives him five minutes to calm down. Okay, maybe two, until he’s fed up with the situation –he hasn’t picked, not really, but he doesn’t have to. What options does he have? Keep trying while he stays with Joe and hurts him by showing he still wants to leave despite it’s futile? Or just feel lucky they found each other and try to adapt to this new reality? It’s not a tough choice—and tries standing up to catch him.

It isn’t one of his finest ideas. Fuck, he needs to remember abusing his body here isn’t the same as abusing it back home—rather, he needs to remember Bones isn’t around to fix him anymore. Dealing with a broken ankle or ribs is all fine and dandy, but having a huge hole sewed with actual thread in his side is another. His wound stretches so painfully he faints for a bit, comes around panting in Joe’s arms as the man does a fantastic job at simultaneously glowering at him while looking worried as hell. Jim wishes that gesture wasn’t so familiar.

God, he misses Bones. He will always miss him. He never even pondered seriously the possibility of confessing his feelings for him and now he’s run out of chances to do it. Even if he hadn’t though, he wouldn’t do it. Just the thought of Bones thinking the same thing about him that everyone else does—that he’s physically incapable of sleeping with one person at a time, that he never cares enough to stay with anyone—and rejecting him for it hurts so much he’s breathless all over again.

When he catches his breath, he burrows closer to the Judge and speaks quietly. “Joe, you don’t have to say anything. Just listen to me, okay?” Jim takes the fact he holds him tighter as a yes, “When we’re together and I close my eyes, I see the same person that’s with me when I keep them open. That’s you, in case you’re wondering. I know you haven’t realized just what a fuck-up I am because you’re all kinds of fucked-up too and yeah, maybe we weren’t meant to happen, but it happened and I’m glad it did. And I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s a good thing he was done talking, because Joe kisses him like there’s no tomorrow. Jim matches up at best he can, which isn’t much considering he’s out of breath after two sweeps of their tongues together, and grips him by the nape to keep him close.

He isn’t expecting the clipped response after _that_ reaction, but the Judge is full of surprises. “So you’re giving up and you’re settling for me.”

Jim huffs. So much for trying to be romantic.

He lets Joe start wandering again and wonders in how many words he needs to spell the fact that he loves him and isn’t so bitter about having to stay here against his will because of it without outright saying it.

It wouldn’t be the best confession ever. It’d be awful, actually; so I’m stuck here but I love you, let’s be together!

He can’t blame him for being mad, for taking it as Jim is ‘settling for’ him.

But if risking his life didn’t do the trick and made Joe know he’s serious about him, then there’s nothing else Jim can do to convince him. They have their days counted, if that’s the case.

He doesn’t want to think about that prospect. At all.

He focuses on the fact he feels insulted because it’s easier.

“I’m not giving up. I’ve tried everything to go back. There are too many variables. I can’t contact them to arrange everything in the proper way. I don’t know how to. I programmed a fixed signal in a single frequency to broadcast at all times. You know how long ago I did that? Over 4 months ago. So what if I’m fucking tired of waiting? That doesn’t mean I’m giving up, that means I gave _everything_ —“  
“They’re ready to get you back. They contacted me while you were out. Apparently the right location for your machine was my place. I told them you’re awake and that you’d contact them when you’re ready to leave.”  
Jim feels like he’s just been punched. “ _What?_ ”  
Joe picks up his helmet, gives him his back as he says, “You’re to be discharged in a week. You have until then to decide. If you change your mind, I won’t hold it against you,” and walks out.

This is it. Jim has what he wanted. He did it. He can go back to his ship; with his crew, his friends, his family. He can go back to Bones.

God, _Bones_.

What he has with Joe, they’ll probably never have it. Bones deserves someone better than him and Jim gives him one too many headaches just being his best friend as it is. He can’t imagine asking Bones to give him more, telling him he _wants_ more. He’s selfish, he knows that, but he’s not—he can’t do that to him.

But even if he goes back and things don’t change between them, if they keep traveling and exploring the stars being the closest friends they could ever be and nothing else, that would be enough for Jim. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to get that back.

So why does it feel like leaving will tear him apart? Why is he even thinking he could, _no_ —he doesn’t want to stay. Even if his ship doesn’t need him, _he_ needs her and everyone on board. Even if Bones doesn’t need him like Jim does, he’ll never be able to forget him. He’ll never stop needing him. He hasn’t stopped doing it in almost 11 months, so there’d no getting over him. Jim is sure of it.

If he stays here, he’s going to be miserable. He could pretend he isn’t, he’s always been a good faker, but that wouldn’t make it any less true.

But can he leave? Is there even a right choice to make here? How can it be ‘right’ to abandon someone he loves to rot along everything else in this universe, to die alone someday thinking he could never make someone stay with him? That he was just never enough? Jim knows how that feels more than well. Can he do that to Joe?

He doesn’t feel like he has any right to feel bad about it if he does.

He wouldn’t be the one who’s being left behind. He’d be the one doing the leaving. He’d have someone—several people actually; a home to return to—waiting for him, he’d have _no fucking right_ to be so heartbroken he couldn’t see straight.

It hasn’t happened yet and he feels he’s being gutted already. He doesn’t _know_ if it’s going to happen at all and it’s killing him.

Taking this decision is the toughest thing he’s ever done.


	9. Chapter 9

He spends the first night without Kirk on duty.

He asks for a double shift and no one has the audacity to deny him until the fourth day in a row he’s about to do it. The Chief Judge herself kicks him out of the Gran Hall of Justice, ordering him to get some rest and reminding him that he’s not a robot; that he’s human and needs to give himself time to _be_ one.

He doesn’t argue with her, doesn’t tell her that’s exactly what the problem is.

He’s spent the last couple of months being too human. He had someone not only warming his bed at night but also waiting for him every day, turning his apartment into what it never was before Dredd met him; a home. He had someone that would always know what he needed; whether that was a kiss or space, Kirk knew and never asked for more than he could give. He was the best, rarest kind of catch and some part of Dredd thought he could keep him.

He was wrong. He’s alone again. The one thing that he’ll always have is his duty and that’s something he’d do well remembering at all times.

His apartment is empty, cold and quiet—except it isn’t, not for him. There are echoes of Kirk’s presence everywhere in it.

The plates and pots he used the last time he cooked are still in the sink. There are leftovers in the fridge Dredd needs to throw away but can’t bring himself to do so yet.  His bed still smells of him. There’s a dent in his mattress in which he doesn’t fit and complex schematics on his desk that he bypasses too as he takes a tour of his own house.

The clothes Kirk was wearing the last time he did laundry are still scattered around the washing machine. Dredd can remember the exact point where he pulled Kirk up and held him on the ledge, can hear the sounds—the breathy whimpers, the pants, the moans with his name pitched in between because for all of Dredd’s accusations, Kirk never got it wrong, not even once—Kirk was making not muffled by the noise of the machine working next to them, can feel his soft skin underneath his fingertips, can outline the arch of his hipbones with his hands by memory.

He touches his shoulder absentmindedly, but the mark Kirk left there that day is gone.

If only he were that easy to erase from his life. But he isn’t and he lingers everywhere. Dredd can’t get rid of him.

A part of him knew this was going to happen. It’s the reason he postponed coming back. It’s worse than he thought it’d be.

His body shuts down for three hours. Then he unconsciously rolls to the side, his arms stretching to find someone that isn’t there and he has enough. He gets up, gets dressed and goes out.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he’s in front of Kirk again. 

He doubts the kid will force him to apologize. Perhaps just kissing him like he’s never done before—slow and sweet, unhurried and undemanding—will be enough.

***

By now he should know Kirk is unpredictable but he’s still surprised to arrive to a place where there are only shadows and marred surfaces and no one either to welcome him or kick him out.

There’s no one. Kirk is gone.

The transporter is gone too and that’s the only lead he has to think his once lover is still somewhere in this godforsaken city. Maybe it doesn’t work that way, hell if he knows what’s supposed to happen when Kirk goes back to his own universe, but he infers the thing would stay here.

The message he left on the floor has been crossed out so many times it’s hard to know there was something there at all. The numbers and formulas on the walls have been erased with less deliberation and are still mostly discernible below the black lines.

He doesn’t want to picture Kirk limping across the room, huddled and hurting as he prepares to leave but he’s doing it already and he’s never felt more bereft in his life.

He hits the wall hard enough to make a hole in it and sits down on the futon. His knuckles are throbbing but he tests their movement and there’s nothing broken, so maybe he’ll leave more imprints of his existence in here before going. Or maybe he’ll just sit where he is for hours; until he’s entirely convinced Kirk won’t come back.

It was him who pushed him away. He deserves this.

It’d be nearly impossible to find him between 800 million people.

Dredd stops himself every time he’s about to try.

***

“He loves you,” Anderson tells him. It’s sudden, uncalled for and it pisses him off more than it soothes him.  
“Look all the good it did to him,” he spits. He hopes she’s using her mind tricks on him, as much as he hates them, because he can’t talk about this and she needs to stop before he has to make her.

They’re sitting outside of James’ room in the hospital.

It’s been nine days and he still hasn’t woken up. Dredd has avoided calling his crew so far, but he knows he’ll have to do it eventually. They can’t wait forever.

He’s come to appreciate Anderson's company –when she’s quiet, that is—during the few hours he spends here. He’s patrolling the city again and only allows himself to visit three or four hours each day.

The Chief Judge has come a couple of times too, both to check on him and on James. Dredd never thought of her as a friend, but when she grips his shoulder briefly before strolling back down the hall, that’s how it feels and it helps, if marginally, it helps knowing there are people there for him.

Anderson looks far from intimidated when she sighs and stands up. Dredd doesn’t care. At least she knows she should leave him alone for now.

 “I’m picking things from his mind,” she says, then grins at him, “He’ll wake up tomorrow.”

Dredd stares at her retreating form.

He will believe her when James opens his eyes.

***

He ends the call to James’ ship as quickly as he can. He’s clear in the fact he won’t do it again. When the Acting Captain attempts to dissuade him, he simply turns the machine off.

He wanted to inform James about what happened immediately, but he’d fallen asleep before Dredd could do it.

He’ll tell him tomorrow.

***

He doesn’t. He’s ambushed by three doctors the next time he visits James and they all are adamant in the need to keep the blonde as relaxed as they can. They say they already had to administer mild tranquilizers to him, that James can’t take more stress hence if Dredd has anything he needs to discuss with him, it’ll have to wait. They threaten to ban him from visiting if he doesn’t comply.

Dredd bites his tongue and keeps biting it every time James looks at him. He doesn’t ask about the transporter though, doesn’t seem interested in anything that isn’t Dredd’s wellbeing—and that’s more than a bit infuriating, considering he’s not the one hospitalized but Dredd is grateful for it; it means he doesn’t need to lie to him. He doubts he’d be able to do that. The moment he asks, Dredd will tell him and if later he has to coerce his way back into the room to see him, he’ll do it.

It’s been two weeks since James almost died when Dredd is finally honest with him. James doesn’t ask, no—he does something worse than that. He makes a promise he won’t keep.

 _I’m not going anywhere_.

Hearing it, knowing he’ll change his mind as soon as he finds out what Dredd has been keeping from him, makes him cling to him with the desperation of a drowning man. He kisses him like it’s the last time he’s ever going to, because it isn’t the last but that’ll come soon enough; resolved to not only remember how James tastes but also to ensure he takes a piece of himself with him, that he won’t forget Dredd no matter where he goes.

He spends the night solving a riot. Crime, after all, doesn’t sleep and for once, he’s glad of it.

***

The next day they tell him they had to sedate James heavily and that he’ll probably need to stay longer than they thought because he reopened his wound while he was sleeping. They don’t ask him if it was his fault or not. In fact, they do the opposite and ask him to stay longer to see if they can start lowering the doses of the drugs before James develops dependency to them.

Dredd sends the Chief Judge a message and takes himself out of duty. It’s brisk, to the point, impersonal. It’s the only type of message he can handle right now.

He rubs his face with a hand and drops on the chair next to the bed. He’s never done that before, preferred sitting on the edge of the bed when the blonde was awake or sleeping, holding him between his arms and enjoying how he always relaxed at feeling Dredd close.

When he caresses James’ cheekbones with a thumb, there’s no reaction. His eyelids don’t flutter, he doesn’t sigh, doesn’t lean into him as he always does. Underneath his palm, his pulse is sluggish. His chest barely rises when he breathes and Dredd knows he caused this, knows he made a mistake by walking away even if it was to give him time to think.

There’s something unbelievably loyal in James. It’s probably the strongest reason Dredd fell for him and he failed to take that into account. He was stupid to believe it wouldn’t hit him hard to realize he’ll have to leave this world and Dredd alone in it in order to return where he belongs.

He can’t help but wonder if McCoy messes up as much as he does. Somehow, he doesn’t think that’s the case. How many times has he hurt this giving, loving man he was lucky to meet thanks to a mistake? How many times will he hurt him again if James decides to stay with him, if he thinks Dredd—Joe, as he promptly renamed him after waking up—is worth it, that he’s worth all the wrong in this world too?

It’s in that moment that he makes a choice of his own.

Dredd won’t allow him to waste his life for him.

James is made for greater things, if not for someone else as well.

If James doesn’t choose to go, Dredd will make him.

It’s not a tough choice to make; it’s black or white. Dredd won’t condemn him to this place. He will let him go.

Doing the right thing has never hurt like this.

***

“Hey,” James slurs, eyelids half-way to shutting down again. His eyes are damp and bleary, his pupils as small as Dredd was expecting them to be because of the narcotics, and he knows he’s mostly out of it, but that doesn’t stop him from taking his hand and kissing it gently, “You’re here. You’re back.”

Dredd tenses, because that equals to him leaving in the first place and also because he hasn’t heard his name and there’s still this doubt in his head, about James talking to someone else.

The blonde sighs, his fingers only just flexing enough for him to brush Dredd’s lips with them. “You’re an idiot, Joe,” he says, a hint of a smile on his lips, “but that’s okay. I’m an idiot too. And a chicken. Are you sure you want me around?”  
“James—“  
He’s babbling. “I didn’t want to choose. I was almost glad about not having to do it and that’s awful. That makes me a fucking coward.”  
“You still have time,” he reminds him. And then he adds, because he’s never told him and he’s made enough mistakes as it is. “Thanks. For everything.”

It’s abrupt, crisp, far from enough but James’ eyes widen and there’s a dazzling smile on his face as if it isn’t; as if he understands everything Dredd isn’t saying; as if _Dredd_ is enough for him.

He removes that expression with lips, tongue and a bit of teeth. He wishes he never saw it but he did.

He still has to make the right thing.

***

It ends up being two weeks instead of one, but James is released from the hospital and Dredd is busy when he shouldn’t have been and misses him.

He curses the need that got him on the field that day and hurries to his place.

McCoy’s fraught voice is the first thing that greets him when he opens the door.

“ _No, Jim! This communication isn’t over until you explain to me what the hell ‘I can’t go back’ means! You_ can _go back; we’re here, waiting for you._ I _’m here! You can’t—“_  
James’ shoulders tremble as he kneels in front of the transporter, his voice lost and small when he murmurs, “I’m sorry,” and disconnects the device before anything else can be said.  
“ _Jim—_ “

Dredd will make it right, but not tonight. Tonight he’s going to be selfish and keep James to himself for the last time.

He gathers the blonde from the floor, holding him tightly and letting him hide his face on his neck. He’s not crying, doesn’t cry even when Dredd assures him that he can go, nuzzling the trail the tears should be making but aren’t, his hands soothing the ache he knows it’s inside James’ chest.

But his lover is determined and won’t have any of it. He doesn’t want comfort; he wants a celebration where there can only be a goodbye.

Dredd lets him lead them both upstairs to his bedroom. He’d be lying if he says all the kisses are tender, but they take it slow, at least, and _this_ —this Dredd will remember more than anything; the fact James picked him over everyone and everything else. The fact that, for a little while, he had everything he wanted and needed right here in his arms.

James is shattered even if he won’t admit it. Dredd can feel it in his every move, in the way he tries keeping quiet when before he was nothing but loud and unrepentant, in how he keeps shaking all the way through and how it has nothing to do with him and everything with all he’s giving up for him.

When James finally collapses on top of him –and that position was every bit as incredible as they both thought it’d be, if ten times as bittersweet—and still doesn’t breakdown, he can only keep him there and forge his weight into his memory, along with everything else he’s given him.

In the morning, it’ll be over.

***

He turns on the transporter pad while James is in the shower and talks with a Mr. Scott that’s very helpful in explaining what needs to be done once Dredd tells him the truth; that James would leave if it didn’t feel like betraying him, that he only needs a push in the right direction and he’s willing to do that for him.

“He loves you, McCoy,” he says. He knows the doctor has been there all the time, listening, and he might be echoing Anderson’s words to him, but he doesn’t need to be a mind-reader to know that’s how James feels, for both of them, and he’s strong enough to comfort someone who’s basically taking everything from him. He knows it must hurt not being the chosen one. “Take care of him.”  
“ _I will_ ,” his alter-ego pledges, sounding resolute enough for Dredd to believe him even though he doesn’t know him. “ _Thank you_.”

He manages to turn it off before he hears James coming. The blonde is barefooted, dressed with clothes a size bigger— _his_ clothes—and smiling beautifully at him as Dredd stares and pulls him closer to him.

This is it.

“Morning, Joe,” he says, kissing him fleetingly, smirking when Dredd just keeps _staring_. He’s giving this up—has to give this up. It could be—it _is_ his but there are better places for James to be. “I’ll fix you some breakfast, nothing fancy because everything in here is either rotten or half rotten. Seriously, what were you doing before I came along? These muscles need feeding,” he pokes one of his pecs, traces his heart with the same finger, whispers, “And this too.”

Dredd steals one last kiss—lingers, steals three more and stops because it isn’t helping, it’s only making it worse—as he cautiously pushes James towards the transporter. Once they’re close enough, he kicks it to life and lifts the blonde onto it.

“What—“ he gasps, gapping at him, “What are you doing, Joe? I’m not leaving, I told you—“

Oh, Dredd remembers.

 _I’m staying_ , James had whispered against his neck during his last night at the hospital. Dredd had known right then he’d taken the wrong decision, the one Dredd needed to correct.

And he will. He’ll make it right. He’ll do it for him and feel no regret.

“You are, Jim,” Dredd says, clenching his jaw as he struggles to keep him in place, using the name McCoy calls him with in the last attempt to make him see he _can’t_ stay.  
“I’m not leaving you!” he shouts. Dredd barely manages to dodge a punch and has to twist James’ arms on his back to keep him still.  
“You’re not,” he promises. It’s the final kiss what stops James’ thrashing and he gets to see those striking blue eyes up close again, wide in awe and shock, “You won’t. But you have to leave.”  
“Joe, I—” there are tears finally streaming down his face. Dredd presses the last buttons as James promises, clenching his fists, “I won’t forget you.”  
“I know,” he says, stepping back, “Go. Energize.”

James is encircled by light. He blinks and he’s gone.

He’s replaced by a stranger.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you guys enough for all the support you've given this story. I really wouldn't have been able to finish it without you.
> 
> I hope you're happy with the ending. If you prefer angst, I suggest you pretend this last chapter doesn't exist. Really.
> 
> Also, I made a fanmix! You can find it [here](http://johnreapergrimm.tumblr.com/post/62074678249/but-i-i-am-here-you-put-the-dream-in-my).

“Doctor, according to my calculations, the Captain has been approximately 10.93 months in the reality he’s currently in,” Spock says and boy, does he need to sit down after hearing _that_. Jim has been alone for almost an entire _year_. That can’t be right.

He knows as well as everyone else aboard the Enterprise that James Kirk is a fighter, but he also knows _Jim_ needs to be _home—_ on his lady _—_ to be himself and he’s terrified about what all that time and distance have done to his best friend.

He’s not worried about the Captain. His body is here with them in top condition. His mind will be just as brilliant as it’s always been, perhaps more thanks to the new experiences he gained on his last quest.

Jim’s heart is another matter. For that, he’s worried sick, can barely stand on his two damn feet.

Someone nudges him to a chair. He’s only vaguely aware of taking a seat as he blinks and tries to will air into his lungs. He’s having a hard time believing—no, _accepting_ —Jim and he have been away for that long and he doesn’t regret coming to ask Spock about this after processing all the information Wright gave him about the conversation with Dredd, but damn it, he’s _pissed_.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was never supposed to leave Jim alone. Hell, he never _meant_ to but that makes little difference.

Jim has been on his own for 11 months while Bones sat on his ass, thinking like the fool he is it was only for a few days—days! It’s not even been 11 _days_ for him and how is that _fair_ —and then they’d be back to surfing the galaxy and running after Jim as he did one of his stunts.

“But he’s awake,” he makes himself say, “He’s out of the comma. He’s coming back soon.”  
It’s not a question, but Spock nods as he adds, “The Captain is in no state for leaving the medical facility he’s in. He needs time for recovering. However, given to the different passage of time in our universes, he could return to the ship today.”

Chekov exclaims something cheerful about Jim returning to the Enterprise. Bones leaves the happy chatter to them and heads out of the bridge, jamming the button to Engineering once he’s inside the turbolift.

If Jim could be back any second now, literally, then he’s going to sit tight as close to him as he possibly can.

***

What he wouldn’t give for a sip of the Saurian brandy he keeps in his office. He wants to be at his best when Jim returns though and so does Scotty.

They sit in one of the transporter rooms and wait.

“That fella, Dredd, he’s you but from there, isn’t he?” Scotty comments conversationally, “You can never get bored on this ship.”  
Bones sighs wearily. He usually finds that a blessing, because God knows living in the black is monotonous enough and it could drive a man crazy, but right now he’s only angry about it. “Apparently.”  
“Jim managed to find you there too, that’s quite a feat,” Scotty says and now he sounds mildly impish, “I wonder what that says about you two.”  
Bones is a grown man. He doesn’t blush. He just splutters. “Something you want to say, Mister Scott?”  
Scotty doesn’t laugh at him. Bones wishes he did. The Scotsman seems frighteningly serious instead. “Oh, nothing. I trust you will handle things once he’s back,” he pauses, breaks into a grin, “Also, there may or may not be a certain poll about when you’re both going to—“  
A poll. He snorts. “A bet, you mean,” he’s not even surprised. Or annoyed, for that matter, “I hope you bet on us.”  
“Always.”

***

He’s not prepared for what follows. For all that his job prepares him to expect the worst and be ready to act consequently, he never considered—not even in his worst moments—that Jim wouldn’t want to come back.

Why wouldn’t he? Everything he loves is here—space to explore, his crew, his friends. _Bones_ is here. Have the past months changed what Jim feels for him and for everything that means something for him?

“ _The ship is yours, Spock_ ,” Jim says. He sounds strained, forced, downright _sad_ and Bones can’t for the life of him understand what the fuck is going on in his head. Why is he abandoning them all if it’s the last thing he knows Jim would want to do? Why is Jim breaking his heart? “ _Treat her like a lady._ ”  
“Put me through,” he snarls to Scotty. The Chief Engineer is quick as a wink in doing so and then it’s just him against a microphone, because Jim isn’t here for him to convince. Jim is over _there_ and he’s not coming back. “Is this supposed to be some sort of sick joke, Jim? Because let me tell you, it isn’t one bit funny and I’m gonna kick your ass for it once you’re back.”  
“ _Bones_ ,” ah, that’s it, what he’s missed since Jim strayed. He’s not used to hearing it like it’s been punched out of Jim and left him breathless and wounded, but it’ll do. He still means the same to him, he knows it, feels it in his bones—pun sadly intended. “ _I—I can’t go back. It’s—complicated. I wish I could, I really—Bones, I—_ ” there’s a world of things Jim isn’t saying and he’s choosing not to and that adds pain to what’s already excruciating, “ _Take care of yourself, okay? Kirk ou—_ ”  
He’s not hanging up on him like this. Not like this. “No, Jim! This communication isn’t over until you explain to me what the hell ‘I can’t go back’ means! You _can_ go back; we’re here, waiting for you. _I_ ’m here! You can’t—“  
“ _I’m sorry._ ”  
God help him, he’s going to lose him. He _is_ losing him. He never really _had_ him and he won’t ever have him back. “Jim—“

With a beep, Jim is gone. He isn’t dead this time, but it hurts almost as much as it did when he was. Bones can’t move, can’t look anywhere, can’t speak. He just sits there, reeling, trying to find something to hold onto in this new arrange of things—a world, an universe without Jim—but failing.

Is he going to be able to keep his composure? He doesn’t know. He’s going to break down, whether it’s now or later, and he has to make himself—not whole, just functional again, somehow.

He’s not Bones anymore, but he’s still Leonard McCoy and he’s the C.M.O. of this vessel and he will do his job. He’ll turn his job into his life, like he’s always done.

“He’s staying there?” Wright comes into the room, winded, Uhura hot on his heels. With some seconds of delay, Spock charges in too. “Is he nuts? He really is.”

He can’t look at Wright. He’s like a breathing, walking, open wound; a limb that needs amputating. He just sits there in shock, grieving, and hopes no one comes closer to him and try to comfort him because he will lose it.

“Lad,” Scotty says tersely, “I think it’d be best if you make yourself scarce for a while.”  
Wright stops by the door when the comm. comes back to life. “ _This is Dredd. Is anyone there?_ ”  
Uhura practically jumps over the console, stabs a button and answers. “This is the Enterprise. Uhura here. Is the Captain okay, Mister Dredd? Do you require something from us?”  
“ _I need one of you to tell me how to make this machine work. I can send him back._ ” That has Bones raising his head.  
She pauses, looks at him, then at Spock. He guesses they both give the same unspoken answer. “Sir, we were under the impression he’d made his own choice. Were we mistaken? He didn’t explain anything.”  
“ _He did, but you got it wrong. He wants to leave. He doesn’t want to leave_ me. _He thinks he needs to stay for me. I have to show him it’s okay for him to go._ ”

Bones straightens on his seat and once it clicks in his head, he stands up and waits next to Scotty as the man does his best to instruct Dredd in what he needs to do to transport Jim safely.

Dredd didn’t say much more than Jim did, but it makes sense. They’re together. Either romantically or not, Jim feels Dredd needs him more than they do back in the place he should be and that should make Bones mad, but he can’t bring himself to be.

He gets it. The Earth on the other side is as ugly as you can make it. There’s no hope there for anyone. And Jim—daring, wild, sweet Jim is nothing but hope. He can be the brightest light at the end of the darkest tunnel. Bones knows this at first-hand. He can get you back on your feet, keep you there and make it seem effortless. And he’ll be happy, oh, he’ll be happy alright as long as you stick around and let him, won’t ask for anything else than you simply _stay_.

How could he ever be able to leave someone he cares about behind?

Dredd probably has no one. If he’s anything like Bones he might have a past that haunts him and a job that consumes him and that’s it. He had nothing else, not until he met Jim.

“ _He loves you, McCoy_ ,” he has to admire this man he doesn’t know. He wants to believe he’d be strong enough to let Jim go too, if roles were reversed, but he isn’t sure. It can’t be the same for the two of them. Bones’ whole universe revolves around Jim. He’s his center. And he’s Jim’s or he was, until he unwillingly left him and Jim probably forgot or couldn’t believe Bones needs him just as much as he does. “ _Take care of him_.”  
“I will,” no matter how hard it gets, he will always do, “Thank you.”  
“This is the part where I go, right?” Wright smiles at them, gives Uhura a kiss on the cheek when she hugs him and winks at Spock, “You’ve got a great lady, Commander, see that you’re always enough for her.”  
“Okay, stand back, I can’t promise nothing is going to pop,” Scotty warns them, snorting when neither of them takes a step back as Wright climbs onto the pad, giving Bones a nod. “Alright then, let’s see if we all blow up trying to get our Captain back.”  
“ _I won’t forget you,_ ” comes Jim’s voice, clear as crystal, and Bones pushes to the back of his mind all the questions he wants to make along with the sting that still lingers in his chest at knowing Jim was really going to carry on without him.  
“ _I know. Go. Energize._ ”

The panel does burn a few fuses and starts smoking. Bones couldn’t care any less. Jim is here. He’s _back_.

He looks around, recognizes his ship, his friends and gives them a watery smile that’s at least half sincere. His breath catches when Bones takes a step to him, stopping barely below the pad. Then he crumbles and Bones is right there, ready to catch him. Jim makes a sound that’s more sob than laughter and holds him fast.

Bones keeps them both standing and grips him firmly, letting Jim’s stream of _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ wash down his pain as Jim hides his face in the crook of his neck.

Protocol can kiss his ass. He’ll check him in a minute.

Right now, they just need each other.

***

Even weeks after his return, Jim touches everything around him with reverence. He stands on the bridge near the main screen and stares quietly into the stars and it’s not only Bones who notices some parts of him got lost along the way, but a year is a long time and they all understand the transition has to be hard.

***

Their time apart is something they don’t discuss until a month has passed.

Jim has taken as a coping mechanism to read every single report that’s written on the ship and that keeps him busy many hours after he’s done with his shift. Bones doesn’t exactly approve of it, but when Jim is finally exhausted and dozing on his desk, surrounded with PADDs filled with data not even Spock bothers to read, he’s right there to tug Jim to bed and tuck him in.

Tonight is different. He goes to the Captain’s quarters earlier and catches Jim awake, squinting at what seems to be Medbay’s last inventory. Bones raises both eyebrows at him and Jim shrinks, clutching the PADD and avoiding his eyes like he’s both ashamed and sure his C.M.O. will scold him for what he’s doing.

He doesn’t. Sighing, he takes Jim by the elbow and leads him to the couch. He sits beside him, stretching his left arm until it’s behind Jim’s head, and nods at the tablet in his hand. “We could go over it together, if you want.”

Jim stares at him, dumbfounded, like he’s still waiting for his outburst of ‘Damn it, Jim, you should be resting! It’s 1 in the morning and that report is fine, I wrote it myself.’ When it doesn’t come, he looks down to the tiny screen and smiles briefly but genuinely and that’s all Bones wants, so he feels accomplished already.

“Could you read it to me?” Jim asks. His tone is small, hesitant and he winces after asking the Computer what time it is, “Never mind, that was a stupid question and it’s late. I’ll go to sleep, I swear.”  
Bones grips his arm, keeps him in place as he takes the PADD from his hand and concedes. “It’s not long. I’ll make it quick. Now hush.”

By the time he’s half-way through, Jim is sound asleep on his shoulder. Bones rearranges them on the couch instead of trying to drag him to bed. He makes sure Jim is comfortable on his lap and watches him sleep, erases the lines of tension that appear every now and then on his pretty face with gentle fingers.

He ends up massaging Jim’s scalp, enjoying the smoothness of his hair. It keeps him from whatever nightmare he’s trying to skirt and Bones tells himself this is something he can indulge in.

This is the first time he feels Jim is okay with the fact that he needs Bones around and he wants it to last. He’s very capable of spending the night on the couch if he has to.

Until now, Jim insisted on giving him the same bullshit ‘I’m fine, Bones, I just got work to do’ he’s giving everyone else and he didn’t like it, but couldn’t push him to be honest before he was ready. Now that he’s not hiding from him, Bones thinks he might be.

There’s been a giant elephant in every room with them for too long.

When Jim blinks and his eyes fix on him as Bones’ hand is still on his hair, he decides it’s time. “Tell me about him.”  
That wakes Jim up in about a millisecond. He doesn’t move from where he is, but he tenses and gapes at him. “What? Bones, I don’t think—”  
“He’s important to you, Jim,” he says, resolute, “So I want to know about him.”

Jim gulps and straightens up. He rubs his eyes with both hands and assesses him, gauging whether Bones can take what he’s got to say or not. He meets his stare, steady, and apparently passes the test.

What he learns next leaves him speechless.

They were together, slept together, virtually _lived_ together and Jim almost _died_ saving him.

And yet Dredd let Jim come back to him, even though Jim was willing to stay with him, even though Jim _loved—_ loves? _—_ him.

Bones won’t make the mistake of comparing himself to Dredd. If he starts having those kind of doubts and insecurities now, before anything has even started between them, he might as well give up before ruining their friendship.

***

Sulu is Jim’s usual companion for shoreleave when they’re in a planet with mountains, cascades and all the exhilarating, crazy stuff they’re more than a bit obsessed with. Bones stopped trying to beat sense into their heads long ago and won’t start again now, so when he hears they’re going to yet another rocky planet he only hopes Jim can somehow avoid any grave injuries while Bones waits for him in a cabin.

He’s always known Sulu is a good man but when he comes to his office and hands him a PADD with the brochure of the best hike available, he’s still shocked.

“I think the Captain would appreciate your company,” the helmsman says, nonchalant, chortling when he sees Bones’ expression, “You do know how to climb, right, Doctor? I could give you a few lessons, if you—”  
“Of course I know how to, Jesus Christ,” he cuts in, irritable but immensely grateful, “Thank you, Mister Sulu.”  
Sulu beams at him. “Enjoy your shoreleave, Doctor.”

***

He’s picking the best location to start the hike and also checking which cabin is nearer to the end point when Jim comes into his room without chiming. It’s not something they did in the past, their boundaries always practically non-existent, but it’s the first time Jim has reverted to one of their old habits and it’s heartening, although no more than the wide grin on his face once he notices what Bones is doing.

“You’re really going with me?” he asks, awed, “Bones! I thought you hated heights—I _know_ you hate heights!”  
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “Turns out I hate having you out of my sight more. I’m going with you.”  
“We don’t have to reach the top,” Jim offers after taking a glimpse at the diagrams on Bones’ computer, “We could stop here,” he points out, “Or here. And then—”  
“Oh, none of that, “ he bats Jim’s hands away from the screen, glowers at him, “I’m the one planning this. We’re getting to the top.”  
“Okay, okay,” Jim’s smile softens but lingers. He bumps their shoulders together, whispers a warm, “Thank you,” and Bones’ heart swells.

It’s taking a while, but they’re going to be okay.

***

The planet’s weather is cold and windy, but Jim acts like it’s a perfect sunny day to climb and his happiness is catching so Bones doesn’t complain much about the possibilities of getting frostbite or hypothermia and tries to enjoy the ride while making conscious efforts not to fall to his demise. The mountain is sloppier and steeper than it seemed in the holopictures and he’s just a passable climber so it’s a challenge for him.

He appreciates Jim keeps asking every once in a while if he wants to stop or head back, even if he barks he’s not a baby and he can do this every time he does.

The cord securing him to Jim tenses whenever he falters—Bones is trying, but he’s lacking the mountain goat spirit that seems to possess Jim as he ascends with no fear or hesitation whatsoever—but it’s not until he loses his footing that Jim gets yanked down and has to stop, clutching tooth and nail to the rocks as he supports both of their weights.

“Bones! Are you alright?” he shouts, once the pour of small pebbles and ice chucks stops, “Are you hurt?”  
Bones grunts, spits dirt and ice out, “I’ll be fine once I’m not hanging in the air, Jim. A little help?”  
Jim guides him to a safe spot and puffs once he can look down and see Bones is really fine. “Okay, listen, I think we need to move a little to the left. You didn’t fall because you were clumsy, Bones. We need to find a more stable path.”

Bones swears under his breath but goes along.

He doesn’t regret his call when he catches the familiar glint in Jim’s eyes he’s missed all this time.

***

When they finally make it to the top, it’s dark already.

The dusk in this planet passed in a rush of purples and oranges and now its five moons greet them from the sky. The only clouds are the ones of a perpetual lightning storm that’s miles away from where they are. The night is so quiet it still roars and threatens from that far, reminding Bones they’re not on Earth and that this is just an interval in their journey.

He can only pray they stay side by side for what’s to come.

He doesn’t realize he’s shivering until Jim speaks. “Bones, you’re freezing,” he moves, stretches his arms behind his back, “Let me—“  
“So help me God, Jim, if you take off your jacket I will wrap you back in it and throttle you with it. It’s -22º here, you’re not staying in your goddamned shirt in this cold!”  
“Wasn’t planning to,” Jim smirks at him, producing a sleeping bag from his backpack. Bones rolls his eyes, but he’s secretly delighted. Jim brought them a _blanket_. “Come on, scoot over.”

Jim opens the sleeping bag and tosses it over both of them, not being very subtle as he shoves Bones against a slope that partially shields him from the wind as Jim covers the other side with his body, snuggling against him as he keeps rummaging in his bag.

When he finally stops, he sulks.  “Damn it, I knew this wasn’t going to stand the cold.”  
Bones peeks at the thermos inside and shakes his head, gets an arm around where he assumes Jim’s waist is to comfort him. “Those things never really worked more than a few hours, Jim, and they were made for Earth. Don’t be a child. We can have hot cocoa once we’re on the ground. Been a while since I made some for us.”

Jim beams at him through lashes that are shimmering with frozen dampness and red cheeks probably numb with the beginnings of frostbite. The damn kid couldn’t keep his hood on not even half way up.

He pulls Jim’s hood up with both hands and lets out an annoyed huff. “ _I’m_ freezing? That’s funny, Jim, I’m not the one with ice on his face.”  
“But I’m hot!” Jim whines, “I’m sweating under this thing, Bones.”  
“Oh, okay, in that case I can give you a hypo for—”  
“Alright, alright, have it your way. I can’t believe you brought _hypos_.”

***

He admits they stay longer than they should but they’re warm and comfortable and he’s more than a bit tempted to ask Jim to call the Enterprise and have them beamed to their cabin instead of taking the way down on foot.

He doesn’t. It’s dark, but the moons give a lot of natural light, and he’s sure Jim will find it hilarious if they both end up face-first on the dirt. He just hopes the bit in the pamphlet about the lack of fauna is actually true. If it’s not, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Bones,” Jim says and he stills, turning to look at him from where he’s crouching and trying to fold the sleeping bag. It’s not the landscape what makes Jim look so beautiful in that moment, standing with a foreign sky and a colorful storm on his back, but it helps, “I need to tell you something. I—I wanted to tell you, back when I called from—from _there_ , but I couldn’t do it that way. I needed to see you, I wanted—”  
“Jim,” they can’t take their gloves off and it’s a shame, but it doesn’t matter. He takes Jim’s hands in his and stops his babbling with a squeeze, cupping his face from outside the hood before giving Jim’s chapped lips a little kiss. He can’t feel his own lips, but their warm breath combined is soothing, welcomed. There’ll be time for proper kissing later. “I know.”

 _I love you_.

Bones won’t make him say it, not yet. He kisses Jim’s dazed expression; kisses his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, his forehead. He kisses his forgiveness to his skin, asking for some for himself.

Jim clings to his neck, makes a wet sound in the back of his throat and somehow manages to bring the circulation back to their mouths, kissing his own understanding to Bones’ lips.

There, at the top of the world, Bones knows for sure.

They’re okay.

 

**Mega-City One**

“Okay, that’s all for today,” Alex announces to his class. He kneels and leaves another box with battered books about science fiction—since coming back, he discovered it’s their favorite subject and he indulges them, remembers space with fondness and just a tad of heartache—beside the one that’s filled with condoms on the table, “Come on, guys, don’t be shy and grab some. And don’t forget your homework!”

He smiles at them as they approach, watching through the corner of his eye as a familiar figure parks outside the old building they’re in. He tries to make it quick, but can’t really rush things when some of them open up and tell him the problems they’re having at home—if they have a home, that is.

There’s a little girl—she must be 14, at the most—who’s pregnant and swears up and down she used protection. Alex can do nothing but hug her, assuring her he believes her—sometimes contraceptive methods fail despite you did nothing wrong—and ask her to bring her parents in next time so they can break the news to them together. He doesn’t ask about the father. He’s got suspicions about who he is and he’ll deal with that kid later.

It breaks his heart, but at least she’s not 10. That was the average age of teenage pregnancy just a few years ago.

Things are getting better, little by little.

Once he’s done, he locks the room and goes out.

“Hey,” he greets Joe with a heated kiss, sighing against his lips as he puts his hands inside Alex’s back pockets and keeps him flushed to him as he leans back into his bike, “Sorry, that took longer than I thought.”  
“Must be hard getting teenagers to understand the need of condoms,” Joe teases him, a deep laugh rumbling in his chest as Alex pouts and half-heartedly hits him.  
“That’s not what I do.”  
“I know,” he soothes, kisses him behind the ear before revealing, “Speaking of which, the Board wants to see you tomorrow.”  
“Do they now?” Alex hums. He’s been meeting with the Chief Judge for over a year, getting her permission to run several educational activities in some districts of the city. The crime rates have been dropping steadily since then so he’s not exactly shocked about getting called, “I wonder if they think I’m a terrorist. You know them, Joe. They wouldn’t be calling me for a public execution, would they?”  
“No,” his partner says dismissively and then adds, menacing, “Over my dead body.”  
Alex makes a face, shoving Joe onto his bike and climbing behind him, curling up against his back, “Let’s try to avoid that, shall we? C’mon, let’s go home.”  
“Alex,” Joe says, warningly, looking at him over his shoulder with a admonishing quirk on his mouth.  
He laughs, putting on his helmet. “There,” he gives the side of Joe’s neck a kiss as the man puts on his own, “Happy?”

There are no words to confirm his answer. Joe squeezes the hands Alex has surrounding his middle and it’s enough.

Their world is imperfect, but they make it better for each other.

Together, maybe they’ll be able to make it better for everyone else, too.


End file.
